Windows 10

VERR_CPUM_INVALID_HWVIRT_CONFIG

The error message from Virtualbox reads:

"Cannot enable nested VT-x/AMD-V without nested-paging and unresricted guest execution!

(VERR_CPUM_INVALID_HWVIRT_CONFIG). "

Encountered this error when trying to run any VM under VirtualBox Version 6.0.12 r133076 (Qt5.6.2). I’m assuming all versions of VBox are affected when running under Windows 10.

Looking around the web found this reddit post where this solution is proposed:

PS C:\Windows\system32> bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

On my system (Windows Version 10.0.18362.329) it didn’t ask for a reboot but even after rebooting VirtualBox still didn’t work. That’s when I remembered I had enabled the Virtual Machine Platform option in the “Turn Windows Features on or off” section of Programs and Features. Disabling this feature and rebooting allowed Virtualbox VMs to boot without issues.

Here’s how to disable the option through PowerShell with Admin rights:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

I’m not sure if other Hyper-V options would affect VirtualBox in the same way but it’d seem they do. Posting up here mostly so it doesn’t get lost in social media link morass.

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Windows 10 and 4K

The simple answer:

Do not buy 4K monitors until Windows 10 fixes all its issues with them, which might be years from now.

Much blame lies with 3rd party developers not caring about how their software looks on HiDPI displays — looking at you, Notepad++ — but Microsoft itself has not decided on how they want to handle these displays in a definitive way.

When Apple tells developers it’s their way or the highway, they are lauded for it. When Microsoft does the same, they are dragged through the mud for it. In this instance I’m willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt.

Hell, not even Google has figured out how to make Chrome look pretty in 4k. That’s how bad the situation is.

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Windows 10 waking up on its own

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why it was doing this. One night it annoyed me enough that I went digging for the cause and found this link on how to disable devices from waking the system up.

In my case the device manager looks like this:
Windows 10 Device Manager

Under “Mice and other pointing devices” disabled all the HID devices except for “Microsoft USB Dual Receiver Wireless Mouse”. Both the keyboard and the mouse use the same receiver and I wasn’t sure if disabling it would also disable the keyboard. The article itself warns about being unable to wake the system up if you disable all devices.

Now, I previously had already disabled waking abilities on all network adapters but for some reason they always get re-enabled after a Windows 10 update. Worth double-checking after any and all updates.

As a bit extra, I noticed Spotify would wake the system up from sleep as soon as my phone connected to the local wifi network. Not sure why the Spotify developers think their application is important enough to warrant this, but the problem does go away once you disable waking abilities on network adapters.

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Intel NUC NUC5CPYH: Windows 10 installation issues

I recently got one of these and ran into issues when attempting to load the Windows 10 installer. Plugged power, VGA, keyboard and then turned the thing on. BIOS prompt popped up and nothing fancy, just your usual UEFI BIOS that makes everything pretty and a pain in the ass to get to.

All the people writing these things clearly hate using their keyboards. But anyway; made some changes in the BIOS and everything seemed to be okay.

Cue the Windows 10 installation. Got out the USB stick with the Windows installer, plugged it in, booted. I could tell everything was much, much slower than usual. Just getting to the “Install” button took about six minutes.

  • Thinking it was the USB stick, I switched to a USB 3.0 stick. Same issue.
  • Switched ports around (not that this could be a problem, the thing only has USB 3.0 ports). Nope.
  • Could it be a bad CPU? But then it wouldn’t turn on. Ditto for RAM.
  • Maybe the SSD drive I put on it is not working properly? But this is before the drive even comes into play and the UEFI system detects it properly.

Start poking around the UEFI again:

  • There was a setting for “Customer IR” I enabled. Disabled it.
  • Boot options: Disabled UEFI boot. Good old BIOS will do.
  • Set VGA as the main video port, HDMI secondary.
  • Disabled Intel Secure Boot and all its toys. They’re not needed and can only cause trouble.
  • There is a setting where you can configure the UEFI for different operating systems:
    • Windows 8 / Windows 8.1
    • Windows 7
    • Linux

Intel NUC UEFI

Since I was installing Windows 10, I picked the first option. I think this is was made the Win10 installation go awry. Set it to Windows 10, rebooted, and OS installation went off without a hitch.

The only problem after that was the SSD having disk errors, argh.

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