As we pointed out recently, the latest Insider Preview build kicks up an incompatibility error message for some users.
Microsoft rolled out Build 19536 to Fast Ring Insiders this week, bringing with it quite a few important changes, fixes and features.
There are some new, optional driver updates in Windows Update and a new setup option, Family Group. Plus there are big changes to the Windows 10 Your Phone App. But, sadly, as we have come to expect with these updates, there are some issues too.
Some users installing the update were faced with the following error message:
“Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0xC1900101. Windows 10 Insider Preview 19536.1000 (rs_prerelease).”
Cannot install Windows 10 Insider Preview 19536 on VMWare Fusion VM
Once again, Microsoft has maintained radio silence on the issues but the general school of thought is that the update is causing a VMWare compatibility issue.
One user explained it like this:
“This is only a VMware compatibility error, as has been encountered with a few prior Insider builds. Hyper-V VMs see SCSI drives without issue running build 19536. SCSI support is standard, so using SATA is just a temporary workaround until VMware & Microsoft sort things out.”
It looks like quite a serious bug that Microsoft managed to miss during the internal testing but, if it has affected you, don’t worry, because we’ve found a little trick that lets you install the Windows 10 20H2 build.
The fix was found by a few intrepid users who discovered they could install it if they add a SATA drive to VMWare VM.
However, it isn’t a quick process, with some users reporting it taking an hour or more. If you want to have a go, here’s how to do it:
- Stop the virtual machine
- Go to the Options pane on the left and click on Edit Virtual Machine Settings
- When the Virtual Machine Settings page opens, click Add (bottom of the page)
- The Add Hardware Wizard opens, click New Hard Disk -> SATA
- Then click on Use an Existing Machine
- Browse to a file called .vmdk and click on Finish
Now wait and when it’s all done you can install Build 19536 onto your computer.
Here’s hoping that Microsoft takes note and pushes out a fix for this fairly quickly
