Capturing a FFU from a Windows 10 IoT Core Device

I would not actually recommend configuring a Windows 10 IoT Core system and then capturing it (you should use the provided build system), but if you were trying to capture a demo or replicate a problem, there is a way to capture to a FFU as of Windows 10 1709 or later.

The basic version is to boot to WinPE and use DISM to capture to an attached USB stick or mapped network drive.

The addition of the "capture-ffu" switch is where the magic happens:

DISM.exe /capture-ffu /imagefile=R:\MyDemoImage.ffu /capturedrive=\\.\PhysicalDrive0

HTTP 502.5 When Deploying ASP.NET Core Site to AWS EBS

I recently had a fun time diagnosing a weird deployment error in the following environment:

• ASP.NET Core 2.0 site hosted on AWS EBS
• VS 2017
• IIS 10.0 running on 64-bit Windows Server 2016/1.2.0

After deployment, the site fails to load with a "HTTP Error 502.5 - Process Failure.  When retrieving logs from EBS, we see an error when starting the site:

Error 0:(0) IIS AspNetCore Module - Application 'MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST/DEFAULT WEB SITE' with physical root 'C:\inetpub\AspNetCoreWebApps\app\' failed to start process with commandline 'dotnet .\MYAPP.dll', ErrorCode = '0x80004005 : 8000808c.

In the end, the fix was simple:  Downgrade the "Microsoft.AspNetCore.All" nuget package to the last version.

I believe what is happening here is AWS doesn't have the newest version of the .NET Core runtime and is failing because of it.  I believe you could also fix this by installing the correct version of the runtime on the EBS instance or specifying a runtime in the csproj.

In the past, a new deployment into a fresh EBS application has also fixed the issue, but did not in this instance.

Addendum: If you are having this issue on your local box, install the version of the SDK that the project requires.  You may need to install the 1.0 or 1.1 SDK for example.

Reflections on Microsoft BUILD 2018

I had the pleasure to attend Microsoft BUILD this year.  There's so much to see and do, it really is an assault on the senses.  Despite so much going on and all the huge announcements, I never feel like was missing anything because the sessions are recorded and freely available on the web.  The greater value is the ability to share videos of sessions I found particularly interesting with those that didn't have the opportunity or time to attend the conference.

There was a lot of AI/ML on display, from Azure hosted, to things you could host on-box with Azure IoT Edge.  It will take a while to digest it all, but I overall love the idea that you can find a way to work with these new technologies on the platform, device and security/risk posture of your choosing.

Some things I ran across:

• A neat demo of Microsoft Cognitive Services
• Smart Mirror (The author had an insightful Microsoft Graph for IoT Devices demo)
• The Seven Properties of Highly Secure Devices 
• Windows IoT: Accelerate the Intelligent Edge with the Windows AI Platform : Build 2018\

Adding drivers to Windows 10 IoT Core at Runtime Using Windows Device Portal

While I was compiling some Windows 10 IoT Core 1709 images, I made a small typo in an input file that resulted in one of the BSP drivers not being included in the image.  Instead of compiling the whole thing immediately, I stumbled upon an easy way to add a driver to a compiled image and make sure I had the correct one.

1. Use inf2cab from the iot-adk-addonkit to create a CAB file: inf2cab c:\temp\driver\driver.inf Driver.MyDevice
2. Navigate to Windows Device Portal | Windows Update
3. Select "Choose Files", navigate to the CAB and click Install
4. Reboot

Using this method, it was easy for me to see that I had messed up the input file versus having the incorrect device driver and incorporate a fix into my next set of builds.