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Updated version number to 2.6 and revised features, bug fixes, and technical changes. Improved network speed test engine and added new GPU tool download functionality.
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# Portable Sysinternals Windows System Testing Utility
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# Portable Sysinternals Winodws System Testing Utility
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<palign="center">
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<imgsrc="assets/systemtester.png"alt="Thumb-drive friendly, no-install Windows hardware health check toolkit powered by Sysinternals and PowerShell."width="600"/>
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* Quickly identifying performance bottlenecks.
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---
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## What's New in v2.5
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## What's New in v2.6
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v2.5 focuses on fixing real-world network testing failures observed in the field, particularly on systems running VPN software (Mullvad, Tailscale, WireGuard) and environments with virtual adapters (VMware, Hyper-V). It also resolves a latency test crash that affected every system, and fixes report encoding that caused garbled output in Notepad and legacy viewers.
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v2.6 is a quality and reliability release. The network speed test engine has been fully rewritten around `curl.exe` to resolve systematic TLS failures on modern endpoints. GPU tool downloads now work reliably via a new PowerShell function that fixes a batch-file parser bug triggered by Windows delayed variable expansion. A PNWC branded startup banner has been added. Thirteen bugs have been corrected, including six recommendation engine false positives and three tool output cleaner failures discovered during live test validation.
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### New Features
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-**PNWC Startup Banner**: Branded ASCII art header with version, contact info, and system context painted on launch; uses `Clear-Host` first to eliminate PowerShell startup noise; pure 7-bit ASCII (no UTF-8 box characters that mangle on older console hosts)
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-**GPU Tool Auto-Download**: New `Invoke-GPUToolDownload` PS1 function handles MSI Afterburner and FurMark with a curl.exe → BITS → IWR cascade; batch launcher GPU Tools Manager now includes **Option 5** to trigger downloads directly without opening a browser
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### Bug Fixes
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| # | Area | Issue | Impact |
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|---|------|--------|--------|
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| 1 | Network Latency |`$targetPort` was never defined: `Test-NetConnection` received `Port=0` and threw a validation error on every run |**Critical**: latency test always failed |
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| 2 | Network Latency |`PsPing` output regex was too strict: minor whitespace variations caused "Unable to parse" on valid results | Medium: latency stats silently dropped |
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| 3 | Network Speed | Single hardcoded Hetzner HTTPS URL failed under VPN/proxy TLS interception (e.g. Mullvad) | High: speed test failed on VPN-connected machines |
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| 4 | Network Speed | No fallback if the download URL failed | Medium: single point of failure |
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| 5 | Recommendations | VMware VMnet and VPN virtual adapters (Mullvad, Tailscale) were flagged as "slow physical NICs" at 100 Mbps | Low: false positive recommendation |
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| 6 | Reports | Report files written as UTF-8 with Unicode bullets (`•`) and arrows (`->`) rendered as mojibake (`• â†'`) in Notepad and legacy viewers | Medium: garbled report output |
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| 7 | Reports | Box-drawing characters (`└─`) in the menu display caused non-ASCII bytes in the script itself | Low: cosmetic |
| 9 | Batch Launcher | Sysinternals download had no SSL bypass: same VPN TLS issue as PS1 | High: download failed on VPN machines |
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| 1 | Network Speed | All 3 test URLs failing: Cloudflare and OVH with TLS handshake errors; Hetzner hostname (`speed.hetzner.de`) retired — DNS resolution failed on all systems |**Critical**: speed test always failed |
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| 2 | Network Speed |`.NET ServicePointManager` SSL bypass cannot resolve TLS 1.3 handshake failures — the bypass callback fires too late in the stack | High: fundamental architectural limit of the previous approach |
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| 3 | Batch Launcher |`setlocal enabledelayedexpansion` consumed `!` characters in inline PowerShell strings before PowerShell received them, generating `Missing closing '}'` and missing Catch/Finally block parse errors |**Critical**: GPU tool downloads always failed |
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| 4 | WHEA Events | Level 4 informational events (including "WHEA-Logger started" fired on every Windows boot) triggered "Hardware errors detected" recommendation | High: false positive on every healthy system after a reboot |
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| 5 | Disk Performance | Multiline regex (`.*`) cannot cross newlines in PowerShell — Write/Read speeds stored on separate output lines were never matched | High: disk performance recommendations never fired on any system |
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| 6 | Recommendations | Battery check matched the string `"No battery (desktop)"` on desktop systems | Medium: phantom laptop battery alert on desktops |
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| 7 | Recommendations | 802.11n Wi-Fi adapters at 100 Mbps triggered "Upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet" recommendation | Medium: false positive on all wireless-connected clients |
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| 8 | SMART Detection |`"Unhealthy"``HealthStatus` from `Get-PhysicalDisk` not included in the recommendations pattern | Medium: actively failing drives not flagged |
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| 9 | Windows Update | Two separate check blocks both fired `"ACTION: N update(s) pending"` for any `pendingCount > 0`| Low: doubled recommendations on most systems |
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| 10 | Windows Update | After removing the duplicate early check, 1–5 pending updates produced no recommendation at all | Low: silent gap in coverage for minor pending counts |
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| 11 | Tool Output |`clockres` and `du` not in the `-accepteula` list — full Sysinternals EULA text was written into the clock resolution and disk usage report sections instead of actual data | Medium: two report sections always empty/garbage |
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| 12 | Security Analysis |`autorunsc` argument `-a -c` caused autorunsc to consume `-c` as the type-selection character for `-a` (codecs only), leaving no CSV flag — tool printed usage/help text instead of autorun entries | Medium: autorun entries never captured |
- Removed the undefined `$targetPort` variable entirely: ICMP ping does not require a port
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- Removed `-Port` and `-InformationLevel Detailed` from `Test-NetConnection` (both require a valid port number)
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- Made `PsPing` ICMP args use bare IP instead of `IP:Port` format
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- Widened PsPing regex to allow variable whitespace (`\s*` instead of literal spaces)
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- Added a debug "raw tail" output line when PsPing parsing fails, so failures are diagnosable
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**`Test-NetworkSpeed`**
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- Replaced single Hetzner URL with a 3-URL fallback chain: Cloudflare → Hetzner HTTP → OVH
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- Added `[Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }` before each attempt to bypass VPN/proxy MITM certificate interception, restored immediately after
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- Added minimum file size check (1000 bytes) so an error HTML page returned by a firewall isn't measured as a "successful" download
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**Recommendation Engine: NIC check**
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- Now iterates adapter lines individually rather than pattern-matching the whole output block
- curl.exe and BITS use WinHTTP/Schannel natively — completely unaffected by `.NET ServicePointManager` TLS limitations; both support TLS 1.3 out of the box
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- Replaced retired `speed.hetzner.de` with `speedtest.tele2.net/10MB.zip` in the fallback slot
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**`Invoke-GPUToolDownload` (new function)**
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- Accepts `-Tool` (`"MSIAfterburner"` or `"FurMark"`) and `-TargetDir` parameters via new `$DownloadGPUTool` / `$DownloadDir` script params
- Added `clockres` and `du` to the `-accepteula` injection list so clock resolution and disk usage sections show actual data instead of EULA text
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- Added `NativeCommandError|CategoryInfo|FullyQualifiedErrorId|RemoteException|At .*\.ps1:` to the per-line skip pattern to strip PowerShell error-object formatting from `2>&1` captures
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- Fixed `autorunsc` argument from `-a -c` to `-c`: `-a` was consuming `-c` as its selection character (codecs), leaving no CSV flag; default logon-entry CSV output now works correctly
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## Key Capabilities
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***Fully Portable**: runs from USB; no installation required
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***Graceful Degradation**: missing tools detected and skipped automatically
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***Robust Elevation Handling**: reliable admin detection (Windows Home compatible)
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***Auto-Download Tools**: built-in Sysinternals Suite downloader via batch launcher
| 15 | Windows Update | Pending updates, service status | Windows Update COM API |
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### Network Testing (Option 7): v2.5 Changes
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### Network Testing (Option 7): v2.6 Changes
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The network test was the most heavily revised area in v2.5. Specific improvements:
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The speed test engine was fully rewritten in v2.6 after all three test URLs failed simultaneously:
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***Speed test** now tries three servers in sequence (Cloudflare, Hetzner HTTP, OVH) and stops at the first success, rather than failing outright if the single Hetzner HTTPS URL is blocked or intercepted
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***SSL certificate bypass** is applied per-attempt and restored immediately after, handling VPN and proxy setups that perform TLS interception (Mullvad, corporate proxies, etc.)
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***Latency test** now runs without a port parameter, so the `Test-NetConnection` ICMP ping actually executes on every system instead of throwing a port validation error
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***PsPing** parsing is more flexible: results are captured correctly across different PsPing output formats
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***Adapter recommendations** no longer flag VMware, Hyper-V, Tailscale, Mullvad, or other virtual adapters as "slow physical NICs"
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***Speed test method 1 — curl.exe**: Uses WinHTTP/Schannel directly; supports TLS 1.3 natively; completely unaffected by `.NET ServicePointManager` limitations that caused failures under Mullvad, WireGuard, and corporate TLS-inspection proxies
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***Speed test method 2 — BITS**: Background Intelligent Transfer Service also uses WinHTTP; TLS 1.3 capable; activates if curl.exe is unavailable
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***Speed test method 3 — Invoke-WebRequest**: .NET fallback with TLS workarounds; last resort only
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***URL updated**: Retired `speed.hetzner.de` (DNS failure) replaced with `speedtest.tele2.net/10MB.zip`
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***Adapter recommendations**: Wi-Fi, Wireless, and WLAN adapters added to the exclusion pattern — 802.11n at 100 Mbps no longer triggers "Upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet"
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## Sample Output
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### Clean Summary Report
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```
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=========================================
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SYSTEM TEST REPORT v2.5
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SYSTEM TEST REPORT v2.6
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CLEAN SUMMARY
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=========================================
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Date: 04/23/2026 14:30:22
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2.**Run ALL Tests Automatically**: Complete system scan with auto-report
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3.**Fix PowerShell Execution Policy**: Set CurrentUser to RemoteSigned
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4.**Verify Tool Integrity**: Check digital signatures and file sizes of Sysinternals tools
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5.**Download/Update Sysinternals Suite**: Auto-download from Microsoft (~35 MB); VPN-compatible in v2.5
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6.**GPU Testing Tools Manager**: Download and manage GPU testing tools
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7.**Help / Troubleshooting**: Comprehensive troubleshooting guide updated for v2.5
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5.**Download/Update Sysinternals Suite**: Auto-download from Microsoft (~35 MB); uses curl.exe for TLS 1.3 compatibility
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6.**GPU Testing Tools Manager**: Download and manage GPU testing tools (sub-menu includes Option 5: Download GPU Tools Automatically — MSI Afterburner and FurMark via curl.exe)
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