Update – Jie Li has posted a great beta install article that includes the fix to this error.

http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/11/16/installation-notice-for-sharepoint-2010-public-beta.aspx 

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Got the following errors while installing SharePoint 2010 on a new Windows 2008 R2 test domain last night.

Luckily everything still works fine…just no sample data to play with :(

SharePoint 2010 Configuration Error

One or more configuration settings failed.
Failed to create sample data
An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException was thrown.  Additional exception information :User cannot be found.

Event Log Details

Error    11/19/2009 8:44:17 PM    SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard    104    None

Failed to create sample data.
An exception of type Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileException was thrown.  Additional exception information: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\Profile\client.config line 56)
Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\Profile\client.config line 56) --->

Event Log Details:

11/19/2009 20:44:17  14  ERR              Task evalprovision has failed with an unknown exception
11/19/2009 20:44:17  14  ERR              Exception: Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\Profile\client.config line 56) ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized attribute 'allowInsecureTransport'. Note that attribute names are case-sensitive. (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\Profile\client.config line 56)