Category: Fusion

Windows 10 Insider Preview 14316 – Error 0x8007001f

I have been trying to upgrade to the lastest Windows 10 Insider Preview release 14316 for several days now. My machine setup is a Bootcamp version of Windows 10 Pro on a Retina Macbook Pro (rMBP). After following the posts online about how to join the Fast ring to get the update and enabling Developer Mode to be able to install Ubuntu on Windows (whoa is that cool) and checking for updates I was a little perplexed as to why the update did not just happen. So further digging found that I should just leave my rig booted to Windows 10 Pro overnight and hope that the build would install.

To my pleasure, this morning when checking for updates I was finally able to install Windows 10 Insider Preview 14316. Or so I thought. The installation errored out several times with the same error code of: “Windows 10 Insider Preview 14316 – Error 0x8007001f.” A few reboots and other troubleshooting including turning the Fast ring to Slow and rebooting several times did not work. I even did a Disk Cleanup of system files so that the installation would start over with a full download in hopes that the error was simply a corrupted installation. Still the same error.

I decided to try my luck and power the Bootcamp partition up with VMware Fusion. On my first try of installing the update everything went well and the partition rebooted virtually. All seemed well so I decided to power down the rMBP and power back into the Bootcamp Windows 10 Partition with Insider Preview release 14316.

The machine booted fine and everything went well. I then followed postings on how to enable Windows Features including Ubuntu on Windows. Further more I was able to get to a bash prompt within Windows 10 on Ubuntu. Way cool. I might come back and share some links of steps, but figured a quick write up was in order in case others are having the same issue. VMware Fusion saved the day. I am still not sure why the build would not install while booted using Bootcamp as it could be something like the drivers uses, but in the end I found a way to play with the new Windows 10 Insider Preview 14316 without getting Error 0x8007001f.

VMware Horizon Announcements

Some big announcements about VMware Horizon have come out and I want to highlight a small piece that I am excited about. The VMware Horizon Mirage 4 piece has me excited because VMware is now integrating application layering. This piece begins to put the offering closer to Unidesk and will eventually make the puzzle fit together better. Anyone doing VDI today knows to separate the layers into Persona, Apps, and OS, so integrating the application layering into Mirage gets even closer to the dream scenario. Obviously Mirage is not just about VDI and almost an entirely different beast to tackle, but integrating Mirage for physical and virtual desktops will be a dream come true for administration. Now admins can get closer to a single corporate image for workstations.

Workstations are the key to the excitement I have today from the announcement as now VMware is officially supporting VMware Fusion Pro with Mirage so the Apple lovers can now have their corporate Windows image deployed locally on their beloved hardware. This is a key piece to integrating Apple hardware into some businesses as VDI was a stop gap. There was a gap due to offline use that has now been filled by supporting Fusion Pro and Mirage.

These are exciting times for end user computing and I look forward to working with customers on the End User Computing journey.

VMware vSphere Administration using Fusion on iMac

I had a frustrating time a while back trying to do VMware vSphere admin work on an iMac. I run a Windows 7 VM using VMware Fusion. The issue I ran into was building nested VMware ESXi hosts and pressing F11. Pressing F11 natively turns up the volume, and does so also while in the Windows 7 VM. I thought to press the FN key with F11 to find out now my windows all disappear taking me to the desktop (probably some OS X term that I should know since people call me a fanboy, but not coming to mind now). I solved the issue initially by booting my MacBook Air to a BootCamp’d version of Windows 7 and doing the install there as it was quick and dirty. Today after pressing many key combinations I finally figured out the magic. After work I decided to start working on the build of a lab for Indy VMUG Demo Days 2012. I would really like to put together a lab to show off the vSphere Replication piece of VMware Site Recovery Manager 5. I think the technology to migrate to a new datacenter with unlike hardware on the other end is valuable. Well building this lab requires a few nested ESXi hosts and will require a few presses of F11. The magic key combination is COMMAND + FN + F11.

*update* it was brought to my attention to use the menu and follow Virtual Machine > Send Key > F11. For some reason or other my memories are of it not working. I will have to try it again this evening. Other articles out there say to use FN + F11, which I believe works on the Bluetooth keyboard, however with my iMac I use the full keyboard and it does not work and requires COMMAND + FN + F11

*update 2* I have verified that using the Virtual Machine > Send Key >  F11 does in fact work. I prefer the keystrokes, but to each his own.