Update Configuration step fails - sometimes

I've installed Beta 9 around 8 times now - tracking down various problems. The Update Configuration page sometimes comes up with a failed message with the text "Transaction already in progress. No product to register."... Also the user authentication page only gives me local or ldap now, is this an error or a change in specification? Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck