Installing Windows 10 Build 10162 on a Dell Venue 8 Pro

Today I decided to repave my Dell Venue 8 Pro with the latest Windows 10 Preview build (10162). I've been running Windows 10 on the device for a very long time, starting with an upgrade from Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, along the way, updates began to fail. Such is the risk of a preview OS.

The installation turned out to be pretty easy.

As most projects go, the prep is the most important step. First, make sure that the device is fully charged. I swear the thing doesn't change when it's running. Maybe it's just my device. Maybe I'm imagining it.

While the device is charging, download the 32bit version of the ISO from the Windows Insider site and burn it to a USB drive. I used isotousb. Format the USB drive for FAT32 and make sure that you click the option to create a bootable drive. Oh! Don't forget to grab the activation keys.

You're also going to need some drivers. You can get them from the Dell Venue 8 Pro Product Support page. I ended up using:

• Dell Venue 8 Pro 5830 System BIOS (vA10)
• Intel Trusted Execution Engine Interface Driver (v1.0.0.1054)
• Intel Atom Z3000 Series Driver (v603.9600.2067.27988)
• Dell Wireless 1538 WiFi+Bluetooth Driver (v3,7.2.59)

There's also an update for the touch screen (Panel Touch Firmware for Dell Venue 8 Pro 5830) but the installer notified me that the touch driver was already up to date after I had installed the Intel Atom A3000 Series Driver. YMMV.

I created a folder on the USB drive and copied all the installers to it.

Then you're going to need a USB hub.Windows 10 didn't come with a driver for the touch screen so you're going to need a mouse. The hub will allow you to have both the USB drive and mouse connected at the same time. You might also need an adapter (like this one) to connect the hub to the micro USB on the Venue 8.

With the device turned off, connect the USB hub to it. Press the Volume Down button and power on the device. It'll seem like the boot stalls until you release the Volume Down button. Then the device will boot into the BIOS setup. Navigate to the BOOT tab. You should see both the internal drive and the USB drive showing as bootable drives. Change the first boot target to the USB drive then save the changes and let the device restart. If all went well, the Windows 10 installer should start.

I chose the Custom Install option and removed all the existing partitions. 

After the installer completed, I installed the drivers in the same order that I listed them above.

One note: the only operating difference that I've noticed is that I have to hold down the power button for a couple of seconds to power on the device. Otherwise, everything else seems to be working as expected. 

Visual Studio 2013 APPCRASH KERNELBASE.DLL

I've spent the last two night trying to figure out why Visual Studio 2013 crashes roughly two minutes after loading. 

Faulting application name: devenv.exe, 
version: 12.0.31101.0, 
time stamp: 0x54548724
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, 
version: 6.3.9600.17415, 
time stamp: 0x54504ade
Exception code: 0xe06d7363
Fault offset: 0x00014598
Faulting process id: 0x940
Faulting application start time: 0x01d056d558e8e214
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\KERNELBASE.dll

It started right after I had applied a couple of Windows updates so I started trying to resolve the problem by rolling those back. No change.

I tried resetting the Visual Studio users settings. Nope.

Integrity scan of the disk. No problems found.

Turned to the Internet and found this answer in the Microsoft forums. It seems that my User Profile was corrupted. I created a new account on the machine, killed the previous one. Done.

Disable password expiration on Windows Hyper-V server

Back in April I wrong a quick entry about not being able to use the Hyper-V Remote manager to access the Hyper-V server. I was getting the error “Cannot connect to the RPC service on computer…” because my credentials on the server had expired. Today I finally got around to changing the account security policy on the server to prevent password from expiring. The command is:

NET accounts /MAXPWAGE:UNLIMITED

Creating a NetBIOS alias for the local machine

My current assignment is with a client that has a system consisting of multiple components where each component is a separate .EXE. This wouldn’t be so bad except for the configuration problem that is created. Each component has its own config file and there is a requirement for some consistency between the config files for some values. In addition, the system is deployed to multiple environments and clients.

Configuration is a nightmare and we’re still doing it manually.

This past week, one of the team members thought of the idea of using aliases instead of referring to actual machine names (for file and application location). The thought was that we could define the aliases in the Hosts file and reference the loopback address (127.0.0.1).

Eh, no.

Using the Hosts file works well for HTTP but has no affect on UNC paths.

Luckily this client has an infrastructure group and they were able to help us out. They identified four registry entries that have to be changes in order to create aliases for the local machine.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters Add a new Multi-String value called OptionalNames. Enter one or more aliases, one per line.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters Add a new DWORD value called DisableStrictNameChecking and set to 1.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters Add a new DWORD value called DisableLoopBackCheck and set to 1.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
Add a new Multi-String Value BackConnectionHostNames. Enter one or more aliases, one per line.

You’ll have to cycle the machine for the configuration to take affect.

Laptop Rebuild

I decided to join the cool kids and purchase an SSD. An opportunity appears and I decided to take advantage of it. I did a little bit of research and decided to get the Intel X25-M. There are an assortment of 128GB drives available but the little extra to get the 160GB seemed to be worth it.

I must say that I’m really impressed with the speed of the drive but my favorite “feature” is the sound level. There is no noise and I really like that.

Now, the downside to a new driver is installing all the software that you accumulate over the years. It’s amazing. Here’s the list of everything that I just installed:

• AVG
• Ascendo DataVault
• Foxit
• Office 2010
• Outlook Connector
• Office Communicator
• SharedView
• Silverlight 4
• PersonalBrain
• Quicken
• Blackberry Desktop Manager
• blu
• VMWare Workstation
• Windows Home Server Connector
• Windows IM
• Windows Live Writer
• Zune
• Live Meeting
• Hyper-V Manager
• Adobe Digital Edition
• ImgBurn
• Intel SSD Tools
• All the necessary drivers

Yes, there are no development tools in the list. I do all of my development in VMs. It really simplifies things.

Upgraded the laptop to Windows 7

I’ve had Windows 7 on my Dell Vostro 1500 laptop since the RC was made available. For the RC, I took the opportunity to get a new hard drive. I wanted to create two partitions. One for the OS and one for data. I periodically repave the machine and it’s painful every time. So I look for opportunities to minimize the hurt.

That’s why I started doing all project work and installing betas in virtual machines (VMware Workstation). I don’t have to worry about a refresh affecting one of my projects nor do I have to worry about an install for one project affecting another.

When I read that Windows 7 was to be released,I wasn’t looking forward to spending the hours reinstalling. I was quite pleased when a co-worker brought this article to my attention.

I followed the instructions, using VMware Workstation to mount the ISO as the CD drive. And just in case, I burnt everything to a DVD after modifying the configuration file.

I had no problems with the Windows upgrade, but after it rebooted, the AVG firewall wouldn’t start. The firewall reported the following error description:

Firewall cannot start because on error has occurred in communication with a driver. Please contact AVG Technical support.

Reinstalling AVG corrects the problem.

I’m now running the RTM of Windows 7 and I only had to reinstall AVG and VMware Workstation.