IE10 breaks RWW

Guess what? A recent update of IE from 9 to 10 stops Remote Web Workplace from working!
One solution is to click the compatibility mode button and thus lets you connect.
However, my rww opened with scroll bars bottom and right - so I assumed it was not a 100% fix.

(I had forgotten to run IE at 100% zoom - as any other zoom will cause the remote page to load with scroll bars - even when set to Full Screen).

So I UNinstalled the IE10 update (Hint: Use the Search box on the Installed Updates to quickly find the "Internet Explorer 10" update.)
Voila.
Here's a picture of the cause and the effect ;)

Oh, and you may need to HIDE the IE10 update form Windows Updates or else it will rise like a Phoenix to haunt you!

(This screenshot shows the AutoUpdate of IE10 and later Unticked..but it was ticked by defaulkt when I first encountered it)

Outlook 2003 cannot open this email

This generic error has a host of possible causes and therefore suggested solutions.. the most tempting of which was to go "Open Source" ;) removing Add-ons, safe mode, repair install had no effect.
I even tried changing the default viewing and composing fonts. Desparate, eh?

However the fix was simply taming that terrible excuse for a program that is Macafee. Still, the customer has just made the mistake of shelling out online for it, so no chance of demanding a refund...

THE SOLUTION:
I disabled the parental control and safe surf components leaving the main antivirus bit running, and voila, I could once again see the body of emails without having to first reply in plain text! Grrr (Not sure which of the two components was the culprit, but I would suggest the surf part.. due to the attempt at web'ing everything back in 2003.) How well did that work out?!

Dreaded Office XP 1706 error - The SOLUTION

You will have found this post searching for Office XP or version 2002 and the error 1706 which pops up every time you load Word or Excel. It prompts for the installation files, in my case PRO.MSI, and gives no clue as to whether these are expected on a fileserver, a CD or some local path.
No doubt you will have somehow located an old copy of an Office XP pro cd, resourceful IT guru that you are, but despite pointing the dialog to all the possible folders on the cd, it refuses to find or open the files it needs.
Next, you make sure it's patched up to date [how much longer will patches be available for these old versions?]
Then you tried a Repair install - rather than an un- and reinstall...
All that accomplished for me was to loose the profile in the accompanying Outlook 2003 installation, meaning the I had to fix the nickname file (more on this below).
Oh, and of course you tried running the app in safe mode, and the repairs etc as admin?
You even got desperate and tried the reg file fix Tip 171 (from memory).. here http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
But this alas made no difference either.

THE SOLUTION:
Copy the PRO.MSI file onto the hard disk somewhere and point to it there instead of on the cd. I chose the same folder as the Office exes were located, not sure if that made a difference, but seemed to work for me.
This got me past the now well-known first hurdle locating the file, but two new dialogs popped up prompting me to install some ttfs, (I forget which as I was certain I was not getting any further), yet I just chose "Ignore" to these two, and, Voila, the error did not reoccur!

Regarding the Outlook Profile issue, it seems that a repair install of Office 2002 affects Outlook 2003 by renaming the profile from Outlook to Copy of Outlook.
The most marked effect of this is that the autosuggest feature (when typing an email address) is reset to empty - ie no entries in it at all
Needless to say, this can result in very grumpy customers if they rely on it heavily. (Especially where the addresses are a combination of those in the Contacts folder address book, and the Windows address book, heaven knows why that particular mess never got sorted out over the many version of Outlook even to parent day!?)

THE SOUTION: rename the .NK2 file to match the changed profile name, in my case "Copy of Outlook.NK2". Fixed!

A user on Kelly's corner reports the following fix:
What did work:
Make the limited user an Admin gp member
Open Word, respond do the installer prompt
Remove Admin gp membership from the limited user acct
No more install prompt

Problem scenario:
Win XP Pro, SP1
Standalone computer (no domain involved)
Office 2000 SP3
Admin gp member did initial install of Office, SP1a, SP3

Create a limited user acct
Reboot, logon as that user
Open Word
Error 1706 dialog displays

Moving email and contacts from OE to Outlook

Moving from XP to Win7?

One of the tricky bits is getting email from Outlook Express to Outlook proper.
Copying the dbx files to the new pc is easy enough.
Then from WLM simply Import OE v6 Mail and Contacts (altogh the contacts don't come through).
An important step is to MOVE the imported mail from the Storage Folder called Imported Files into folders you have created in WLM. This takes time when there are a lot of folders containing large amounts of email.
Then from Outlook, you import mail and it detects the WLM store.

I don't bother exporting or importing the Mail Account settings, even when there is more then one. A few screengrabs of the various config screens copied across to the new PC are all that is required (along with the password/s). Make sure you look at all the screens, especially if the Outgoing "Logon Using" is ticked.

Contacts is almost as simple (when you know how:)

Copy the wab file to the new pc. Double click it, which will [somewhat presumptuously] import all the contacts into Windows Contacts folder.
Then from Outlook you can choose the Open > Import Messages & Contacts (choose contacts only) in the WLM format.. as described correctly here:
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/382
This process took longer to import than the messages, but may have been because Outlook was "preparing to Send and Receive"...

A tip therefore is to force all the Email clients to work offline, by either disconnecting from the network, setting the clients to Work Offline, or in my case, leaving the passwords blank until the work was done.

Sending photos by WindowsLive email is now near impossible... SOLUTION

It was a great leap forward once the ability to downsize any selection of photos directly from explorer was included in Windows (without having to find a separate down-sizer). Even Nanna and Poppa could do it..
XP and OE come to mind. They had their issues, but eventually were ironed out over the years.

Then came WLM
Windows Live Mail 2011 has caused a lot of users to tear their collective hair out trying to the simplest of things.. send a few down-sized photos as an email attachment...

The most succinct post (of many) describing the solution is:
http://www.winvistatips.com/re-sending-pictures-wlm11-t830132.html

In summary - WLM sends just a thumbnail of the images you want to send, and uploads the full high resolution image to the user's Skydrive - available to all Windows Live accounts. The recipient of the email can then view the "Slideshow" by clicking on a link to look at the online version of the full size images stored on Skydrive.
We all know NOT to click on links in emails....

The SOLUTION?

Right-click on the selected photos as usual, select send to mail recipient and re-size as wanted
Once it comes up as a photo e-mail – here's the trick - hit view slideshow in the e-mail window

A Photo album tools tab will now appear. Hit the format tab. Click on the paper-click (attachment) icon, and they will now be switched to attachments, at their re-sized resolutions

Here's the kicker:
You need to have a WindowsLive account setup and logged in once for this to work.
[caption id="attachment_378" align="alignright" width="575" caption="Click on the paperclip once you have logged in to WL to attach photos the old fashioned way :)"][/caption]
To use the plain WindowsLive email program, no Windows Live account is needed, but without signing up to yet another service, sending photos becomes near impossible - to the point of completely jamming up the outbox - with an error that requires you to delete the "Email Photo and try again"!

Grrr..

Desktop Publishing in Open office Draw

Today I had to create a print ad for the XNET Fusion that we are promoting for World eXchange. I used to use MS Publisher for this sort of thing back when I thought Windows was the only option and even though I tried with earlier versions of Open Office I always got a little frustrated and would end up digging out my old Publisher Disks.

Well I have OO 3.0 now which is not even the latest version and it was just too easy.

The earlier versions of OO could not rotate stuff on the page which is the something that I often want to do in promotional material. No problem for OO draw now.

I also used to get frustrated with scaling stuff. It would be very jittery and snap to odd positions.

The point I am trying to make is that if you have tried OO and didnt like it maybe its time to give it another go.

Email on your phone - should you make the jump?

If you thought Crackberrys were addictive and that the novelty would wear off.. well think again.
Now that the rest of us can also have some too

But if it to become something as normal as having your phone with you, then it must be

easy

reliable

not run your battery down!

Applets for the mass market produced by such heavyweights as Nokia or Google, and used by millions, are certain to be easy to use, and as reliable as the network that carries them.

The problem is that the push technology they are based on means that the signal is on a lot more than the occasional call or text. And my experience is with the battery lasting less than half a day!

So getting used to them is no problem, but

Not that the email is always tightly integrated into the other aspects of the phone, which for me is the main criterion for choosing which method to use.

For the record I am on the New Zealand Telecom XT network and have a Nokia 6120 Classic (which has the  Symbiam60 operating system).  It appears that Symbian40 does not allow some of these apps to be used..

There are several options - three amongst which I have tried
- Google's own app (m.google.com.mail)
- Mail for Exchange
- Nokia's Messaging

Google's app whilst looking good, surprisingly, didn't integrate well with the phone's contacts list, instead presenting the txt interface each time an address is typed in. Most irritating!

The Nokia app, however acts in an much more Google-like way in the address line - suggesting possible matches in a drop-down as you type the first letter or three.

The other key criterion was to have gmail's contacts list seamless with the phone's. This was best accomplished using Mail for Exchange. At time of writing, contacts, tasks and email can be synched to gmail, so this is another good option, and it can be set to check periodically, say every 15 minutes is probably enough and will make the battery last more than just a day.

The Nokia app redeems itself by allowing scheduling of a download window. So it easy to be checking email only during your preferred work hours, and weekdays. BUT when on, it seems to be always on... thus my battery issues.

Be warned however, that the Nokia app appears to be in beta, or given away free for the time being.. The beta was supposed to have been pulled at the end of September - yet it is still going strong two months later.. I could find no more info on what plans are available - suffice to say that the only plan available is still the  "Nokia Messaging trial". http://e71bynokia.blogspot.com/2009/09/nokia-messaging-trial-ending-this.html

Well, you can't have it all, I suppose.

SIDENOTE: Tasks is not yet synced with any of these methods - but is possible with a £5.99 plan at http://www.goosync.com/About.aspx

Access Details

Google's own applet:
To download the app, point your mobile device's browser to http://m.google.com/mail.

Mail for Exchange can be freely obtained here

http://europe.nokia.com/get-support-and-software/download-software/mail-for-exchange

Download Nokia Messaging software can be done by regisering a Nokia account, and getting a link sent by text message sent to your phone here https://netac9.vie.hosting.nokia.com/account/getSoftwareAfterLoginUI.action

Alternativley, a direct download can be started by browsing from the phone as the instructions below indicate.

If you're having trouble receiving the text message with the Nokia Messaging software, you can use the web browser on your phone to directly download the software.

1 On your phone's web browser, go to: email.nokia.com

2 Select the button to download the Nokia Messaging software.

3 Follow the instructions on the phone to download and install the software

4 Enter the email address and password of your Nokia Messaging account to log in and start using the service.

Humility in IT

It's nice once in a while to be pleasantry surprised by an error message that actually apologises for the inconvenience - and means it (and offers a couple of useful options to try - other than just the choice of OK or Cancel ! )

[caption id="attachment_51" align="alignnone" width="659" caption="Firefox could not restore a previous session - and was actually honestly sorry.."][/caption]

beware of moving Profiles and User data

In Vista (and Win7) beware of moving Profiles (and so) User data to another drive without doing some reading....

This used to work fine in XP with the standard My Document>Properties>Move>yes

UPDATE: Found MS knowledgebase on this where they say its possible,

BUT DON'T SUPPORT IT, OR RECOMMEND IT. Blah

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949977

Various alternative methods are discussed in detail here http://joshmouch.wordpress.com/2007/04/07/change-user-profile-folder-location-in-vista/,  and I have quoted extensively from that article, but the outcome of this long discussion is that I would opt to only do this when rebuilding Vista.

As an aside, I learnt a useful tip from the thread - as well as the fact that MS has finally caught up with 'Nix and has symbolic links...

To get a CMD prompt with Administrative privileges, all you need to do is:
1, Click the Start Button
2, Type ‘CMD’ in the Start Search box
3, Press and hold down [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Enter]
You should then be able to create the links you need (symbolic links)  such as:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/

Or use the tool LINKD

Get the tool LINKD.exe from Windows Server 2003 Ressourcekit tools. Copy it to c:\
Start Vista from CD into repair mode Konsole window or you can use BartPE or a second Windows XP/Vista installation.
Now rename c:\users into c:\users.old
type LINKD c:\users D:\Users
Now copy all files from c:\users.old into c:\users Restart.

The thread starts back in 2007, and continues right to the present day. Some ppl have had success using mklink

1) Created a new partition (“d”) for my data.
2) Backed up up my drive (just in case).
3) Loaded the Windows Vista installation disk and got to the command prompt.
4) Once at the command prompt, I entered the following commands:

robocopy C:\Users D:\Users /MIR /E /XJ [Enter]
rmdir /S /Q C:\Users [Enter]
rmdir “C:\Documents and Settings” [Enter]
mklink /J C:\Users D:\Users [Enter]
mklink /J “C:\Documents and Settings” D:\Users [Enter]
The robocopy took about 15 minuted for 5 gigs worth of data. The other commands took no time at all.

5)I exited and rebooted.
6)Voila. I was good to go.

When I look in my c partition, I see “junction pointers” for c:\Users and c:\Documents and Settings both pointing to d:\Users.

Everything seems smooth and I haven’t noticed any slow down.

Then some success:

Richard on January 22, 2009

I think you guys all think Vista is a real new OS. It is much more simple than any of the above optiosn to move a profile directory and maintain its rights.

First I did as others mentioned. I changed the default location of users in the registry (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList). I set the Default, ProfilesDirectory and Public keys to point at a seperate volume. (in my case D:\Users}. I then copied the C:\Users\Default and C:\Users\Public directories to the target (D:\Users in this case).

Then I created a dummy admin, and logged in as my dummy admin, confirmed the location of the new admin profile in the secondary volume (i.e. D:\Users\Dummy)

Now the trick: I first set my file view to allow my dummy admin to see invisible, hidden and system files. Then I right-click the Computer icon (or go to System in the Control Panel), select Properties and then choose Advanced System Properties. In the Advanced tab is a User Profiles section. Click the Settings button and you can move each profile right there, Be sure to move the profile to the same folder name. So if you are moving user JDoe and his profile is C:\Users\JDoe then make sure to move it to the same folder (i.e. d:\Users\JDoe). This will move the whole profile and keep the same user rights! No screwing around with command line or anything. In the registry make sure all your user profiles point to the right folders now. The user profiles will start with S-1-5-21-(lots of numbers) usually. If you see Short names like S-1-15-18, those are Service profiles, leave those be, only edit your user profile paths. Now log back in a your migrated user and enjoy.

Caveat: Because you did not change the rights of the original C:\Users\profile directory you will not be able to rename or remove C:\Users. This isn’t a big deal as you are not using it anyway.

Richard on January 22, 2009

Actually a correction to the above. You can actually log in as the migrated user and delete the old C:\User\ profile of that specific user, since they still own the folder.
I menation that for the guy who had a 100 gig profile above. And sorry this still requires a copy.

Some arguments continues as to whether symbolic link should or should not be used, and success with Win7 has been reported:

cdr on October 2, 2009

In our school we have dual boot xp/vista computers.
This is how we move the entire Vista User profiles folder to a different partition
(E: in our case).
First we do a regular Vista installation.
Then we run the following startup script:
REM robocopy the user profiles folder to E:
robocopy C:\Users E:\Users /MIR /E /XJ /COPYALL /DCOPY:T
REM remove user profiles folders/link from C:
rmdir /S /Q C:\Users
rmdir “C:\Documents and Settings”
REM create on C: symbolic links that refer to E:
mklink /J C:\Users E:\Users
mklink /J C:\Documents and Settings” E:\Users
We activate this script with a local policy (gpedit.msc): Computer configuration – Windows settings
– Scripts – Startup. We also enable two other options: Computer configuration – Administrative
Templates\System\Scripts\Run startup scripts asynchronously and Run startup scripts visible.
The script has to be a computer startup script in order to run it before any profile is loaded.
After we reboot the pc and the script has run once, we remove all previously mentioned settings.
We’ve been doing this for some time and until now everything seems to work fine.

Service Packs and Updates keeping us in bacon

To apply, or not to apply.

Until this week, I have been advocating customers to apply any and all Microsoft updates that are available.

I was surprised (but not shocked), that a routine SP1 on Vista Home Basic went up the creek.

I was also surprised that more of a fuss had not been made of it at the time (mid 2008). Judging by the number of similar reports, it was obviously a widespread problem.

In summary, if SP1 was applied whilst the antivirus was not disabled, the file $TxfLog was corrupted and Windows simply got into a reboot loop.

Booting to Linux (Ubuntu 9.04 did it for me), mounting the drive using the third generation ntfs-3g allowed me to delete the file.  Bingo.  Fixed.

(Most posts point back to http://www.delmartian.com/workaround-for-stop-0x0000c1f5-0xc1f5-c1f5-bsod-clfssys-kb946084.html so kudos there.)

Problem solved? You'd think.

Up till then I didn't know which update had been the cause, so I ran SP1.

This time I came up with another unusable Vista system, telling me usefully:

!! 0xc0000034 !! 250/53007 (_0000000000000000.cdf-ms)

Fortunately, this too was fairly simply resolved using a Vista Recovery Disc and going back to the last Restore Point, summarised well here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Error:-0xc0000034-While-Installing-Windows-Vista-SP1-Or-SP2&id=2580302

OOPS, spoke too soon, restore shows the point that I wanted (immediately prior to SP1), but never completes.

I ended up backing up (via F11 and saving to a USB disk) and reinstalling ("recovering").

A few things occur to me.

1 How did we fix these sorts of things before we could search (and find) the exact error message, and find multiple hits and usually a solution, or at least a hint which direction to go, thus saving hours of trial and error in getting it fixed.

2 Does Microsoft specifically say that we need to disable antimalware when applying major (or even minor) patches? They probably do somewhere in the never-read "I agree" screens...

3 A new refreshed OS is a good idea occasionally, but only when I choose it, and not on a customer's beloved tweaked and data-laden dust-collector.

4 Restore points are REALLY useful, and we should use them more routinely. (Perhaps we are guilty of jumping to conclusions that fixes should be harder than that, whereas we should be covering off the simplest, built-in methods first).

5 In Vista there are a lot more built-in options to try and fix things at boot time, but the terminology is obtuse and each of the methods seems to confuse the matter further!

For a good run down of the Vista recovery process, see http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

And lastly, a knowledge of Linux is absolutely essentials these days to fix Windows!