David Gardiner - Windows 10

Microsoft LifeCam Studio stops working with Windows 10

2018-07-28T18:59:00.000+09:30

I have a Microsoft LiveCam Studio webcam that I bought a few years ago for the Adelaide .NET User Group for when we have remote presenters. It's been pretty good (although not long after I bought it, Scott Hanselman tweeted that actually the Logitech 930e was worth considering with possibly a wider shot).

I went to use it the other day, and it just plain refused to work. My laptop has a builtin webcam and that was showing up, but using any app (eg. Microsoft Teams or the Windows Camera app) just wasn't showing the LifeCam. It was strange as it did show up as an audio device, but not video.

I brought up Device Manager, and looked in the Cameras node, but it wasn't there. I tried unplugging it and re-plugging back in (and rebooting Windows) to no avail.

I then tried the webcam with a different PC, and it worked, so at least I knew the device wasn't faulty. Firing up Device Manager on the second PC revealed something interesting though. The LifeCam wasn't under Cameras, it was listed under Imaging devices. Who would have guessed!

Switching back to my laptop, in Device Manager, I went to the View menu and selected Show hidden devices. Looking under the Imaging devices revealed something unexpected. There were two device drivers listed for the LifeCam! I right-clicked on both devices and selected Uninstall device.

I then plugged the webcam back into the laptop, and now Windows registered that a new device was attached and indicated it was installing the device drivers. After a short wait, it was now working correctly!

Mystery solved 😁

Installing Mono in Bash on Windows 10

2016-10-19T21:30:00.001+10:30

I was working on a pull request to add a feature to Cake, which includes bootstrapper scripts written in PowerShell and in Bash. Ideally my PR would include changes for both scripts to keep them in feature parity. I could create a VM and install a flavour of Linux to test out the Bash shell script. But then I remembered that since the July 2016 update, Windows 10 now has an optional Linux Subsystem, which includes a 'native' Bash shell.

Enable Developer Mode and Bash

So first off, let's get the subsystem installed and up to date. You could do this manually through Windows Settings, but I love scripting things where possible. From an elevated PowerShell prompt:


$RegistryKeyPath = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock"
if (-not(Test-Path -Path $RegistryKeyPath)) {
    New-Item -Path $RegistryKeyPath -ItemType Directory -Force
}

# Add registry value to enable Developer Mode
New-ItemProperty -Path $RegistryKeyPath -Name AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense -PropertyType DWORD -Value 1

Restart Windows, then open an elevated PowerShell prompt again:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

Reboot again.

Now, type in 'Bash' and launch the Bash shell. The first time, you'll be prompted to enter a separate username/password. It's a good idea to make sure all the components are current.

Run the following to download and install any package updates:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Installing Mono

Cake currently uses Mono when run on Linux or MacOS (apparently .NET Core support is in the works). There's one trick regarding Mono running in Bash on Windows 10 - the build that works correctly is 4.2.4 (See the discussion on this Github issue https://github.com/mono/website/issues/199)).

First up, add the key for the Mono project:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF

And now download and install Mono 4.2.4 and related tools:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian wheezy/snapshots/4.2.4 main">>/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-xamarin.list;apt-get -qq update;apt-get -qq install git gcc mono-complete'

I found after this, this easiest thing was to exit Bash and then open it again. Now I could use Cake's build.sh script which could successfully use Mono to run nuget.exe and cake.exe!

Windows 10 and dodgy ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 drivers

2015-11-10T22:29:00.001+10:30

My old Dell XPS 1645 laptop is still kicking along. Sure, I might have nick-named it "Big Iron" due to the fact that it single-handedly technically put me over the carry-on baggage weight limit on my recent trip overseas, but it does the job, and runs Windows 10 quite well.

Except that earlier this year Microsoft (or AMD/ATI) updated the video drivers (15.200.1060.0 [15/07/2015]) and introduced a bug that causes the maximum resolution to change to 1280x1024, which looks ridiculous. The only solution I’ve found is to revert back to the older driver.

Open Device Manager
Right-click on the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Choose Update Driver Software
Select Browse my computer for driver software
Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
In the list, select the older version (8.970.100.9001)
Click Next
The screen will flash a few times, and a few beeps later you should be returned to your regularly scheduled 1920x1080 resolution again.

The Windows Feedback tool shows that this error has been reported by a number of people, but unfortunately I suspect it hasn’t registered as a high enough priority to fix (and may not be considering the age of the video hardware).

Solution to error 0x80240020: Upgrade to Windows 10

2015-07-31T10:06:00.001+09:30

So the whole “delete the contents of the downloads directory” thing didn’t work for me.

Today I noticed a tweet linking to an article, which in turn referred to a post in the Microsoft forums.

Apparently, the error 0x80240020 is not an indication of any download corruption – just that you’re computer is in a “holding pattern” waiting for the green light from Microsoft, as they’re staging the upgrade process. I think it would have been preferable to have just had this sitting quietly on my computer, rather than littering my Update History with “Update failed” messages.

So if you don’t want to wait, there’s a registry key you can set. (Instructions for setting registry key repeated here from the forum post)

Locate the registry key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
It should exist, but if not, create it.
Create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value with Name = "AllowOSUpgrade” (without the quotes), and set the Value = 0x00000001.

Now go back to the Windows Update in Control Panel, and tada – a new screen appears!

Click on the Get started button and things start happening..

It thinks for a short time, then the Windows Update prompt appears on your desktop:

And back in the Control Panel, you’re also prompted to restart. Clicking Start the upgrade now, or Restart now both do the same thing

Your computer reboots, and the upgrade proceeds.

After a little while, and a few reboots later, you now have Windows 10!

Woohoo!

Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80240020: Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

2015-07-29T14:35:00.001+09:30

Update – Note that this didn’t work for me. Still waiting to find a workaround, otherwise I’ll try using an ISO instead

Eagerly waiting for Windows 10 to upgrade my PC.. But nothing was happening. I noticed this error in the Event Viewer System Log:

“Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80240020: Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.”

This thread suggests the cause may be a corrupt download.

The solution (repeated here):

Delete the contents of C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
Open an elevated Command Prompt and run `wuauclt /updatenow`
Go to Control Panel | Windows Update and click Check for updates.

After a minute or two, you’ll notice some new files appear in the Download folder, and the Windows Update status will change similar to this:

I’ll update this post if there’s anything else that requires attention to complete the upgrade successfully.

Later that same day…

and even later…

The installation failed with the same error 😢