My plan to install the latest Windows 10 Creators Update fell short during the weekend due to an error identified as 0xc1900200. I was using the “Windows 10 Update Assistant” to perform the upgrade, and the assistant did initially confirm that my system was ready for the upgrade.

On my Windows 10 computers I always work with a standard account and keep a separate administrator account. This provides some additional security as any operation needing administrative privileges will require an administrator’s approval.

After reading the latest horror stories depicting the Windows 10 anniversary update as a merciless destroyer of everything Linux, I was somewhat concerned before applying the latest and greatest from Redmond. Sure, it would make absolutely no sense if Microsoft was actually deleting data from their customers devices, but mistakes do happen so I made sure to back everything up before upgrading.

First up was my primary Windows 10 / Slackware 14.2 based notebook, an ASUS G771JM with 256GB SSD and 1 TB HDD running under UEFI/GPT with secure boot disabled.

The Windows Update service will provide you with drivers for the Asus USB-N13 adapter, but in my experience, none of these drivers function reliably. They all suffer from the “limited connection disease” thus forcing me to reattach the dongle and play an endless game of connect and disconnect.

After Windows 8.1 had performed an unscheduled reboot, I was greeted with the following error message when trying to start up a virtual machine in VMware Player:

This virtual machine appears to be in use.
If this virtual machine is not in use, press the “Take Ownership” button to obtain ownership of it. Otherwise, press the “Cancel” button to avoid damaging it.

With the release of OTRS Help Desk 4, it seems that running OTRS on a native Windows environment for all intents and purposes is no longer viable. By killing off the Windows installer and recommending migration into the OTRS appliance, the OTRS Group seems to be subtly hinting that OTRS on Windows is dead in the water.

Switching to the OTRS appliance might be a good solution for some Windows installations, but in my case OTRS is configured with MS Active Directory as a customer and agent backend, and we’re relaying on IIS for single sign on. It might be possible to do a source based update and subsequently hack it all back together, but who really wants to travel down that road.

This installation procedure will extract only  relevant libraries and executables from the BIND 9 package, and not install a full-blown DNS server. The installation method is also applicable on Windows 7 64-bit systems.

Head over to http://www.isc.org/downloads/ and download the BIND 9.10.0-P2 package. Select the 64-bit version and leave the 32-bit package as a last resort. The 64-bit version is dependent on the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package, which you can download and install from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679#

I bought BioShock on a Steam sale once upon a time and finally got around to playing it. However, a few minutes into the game I realized that the lack of sound was not due to my character going deaf from an initial explosion.

After trying to tweak the sound settings without any success I came to realize that BioShock is rather old as it was released back in 2007. Thus, it’s not exactly certified for Windows 8. A quick fix was to run the game in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 3) which immediately brought the in-game sound back to life.

I usually prefer VirtualBox for my non-commercial virtualization needs, but since I already had VMware Player 6.0.2 installed on a Windows 8.1 64-bit host I decided go with it for my Slackware Linux 64-bit guest.

Having a sick day, I jumped at the opportunity to download and install the latest Windows 8.1 release on my Asus ROG Tytan CG8480 Windows 8-based gaming pc. Since the update came at a solid 3.4GB I decided to let Windows handle this one on its own. When I came back to check out my new Windows system, I was informed that Windows unfortunately couldn’t complete the update.