CHRISdotTODD

Unlike XP, Vista does not provide the same privileges by default, and therefore it can be difficult to repair your PST file. The trick is to run the scan and repair program with Admin privileges. Here are the steps: Close Outlook -- likely it's already closed, because if the PST file is corrupt, Outlook wont run. Find the Command Prompt, right-click, and run as Administrator. At the command prompt, enter "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\SCANPST.EXE", including the quotes. If you have a different version of Outlook, you may still have a repair program -- find it and replace with the string I have here. When prompted to Repair, select Repair. Enter 'Exit" at the command prompt to close the Command Prompt window, and run Outlook again. That should do the trick. Some folks may not have an Admin password for Vista. If that's the case, check out these instructions for further help.

I noticed in my video viewing that when I set the view mode to full screen, the message "Press Esc to Exit Full Screen" is never going away. I tried searching Google, and while many people have asked the same question, there was no clear answer. Through some experimentation, I learned that in locking down my Flash Player (see New "Cookies" and your Privacy ), I introduced this new issue. Apparently the Flash Player wants to store information as third-party content in order for the message to go away. You need to go to the Global Storage Settings panel and check "Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer." Interestingly, you can keep the storage setting on "None", and it will still work. (Remember, the Flash setting for your installation is reached by going to a website, with each tab having its own URL. There is no application you can open locally to make configuration changes. Learn more here .) This seems like a real mista

I adopted some older code that I think had been working for some time. This code is part of an admin screen, and as I was testing some improvements I noticed an error with Internet Explorer. Since I predominately use Firefox, I'd never detected the error as a user of the admin screen. Internet Explorer reported the first character as having an Invalid Argument. The simple code was opening a new browser window. The problem was a hyphen in the window name (Help - Venues). window.open("venue_all.php","Help - Venues","height=800, width=720,scrollbars=yes")

Courtesy of xkcd.com

I started getting this error message when I opened Word, "This file contains macros with an expired or revoked signature." In my case, this was due to a Global Template Add-in that had an expired certificate. Word behaves differently depending on the Macro Security level. Very High : You only get a message that macros are disable for this project. High : You get an initial error message of "This file contains macros with an expired or revoked signature," before the prompt of macros being disabled. Medium: You get the option to Disable or Enable the specific macro. This dialog box will also provide some clues as to the source of the problem. Low : No warning or disabling of any macros. To change the Macro Security, go to Tools >> Macro >> Security... With an expired Certificate, if you still want to use the macro or template, you either need to set the Macro Security to Medium or Low. A Low setting can open you up for other problems, while Medium require

Being that I don't use MS Access often, I always look for examples of my prior work to assist me with my new problem. Today I ran into this error, Run-time error '3464': Data type mismatch in criteria expression , which was a good reminder. When writing a VBA query, Text needs wrapping in quotes, Dates need wrapping in hashes, and numbers need neither of these. If you get it wrong, you'll get the 3464 error message.

One day when I tried to load Photoshop CS on my Windows XP box, it hung. I don't recall having it crashed on my prior usage. I tried killing the app, closing my other apps, and loading again. Still no help. I next tried rebooting; again no help. After searching a bit, I found a solution within a thread on Photoshop 911 . I removed all ".psp" files from the "Adobe Photoshop CS Settings" folder -- I just moved the files into a temporary folder. Photoshop recreate 3 files when I launched it: Adobe Photoshop CS Prefs.psp Favorites.psp PluginCache.psp Depending on your specific XP installation, you may or may not find the "Adobe Photoshop CS Settings" folder in this location: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\8.0\Adobe Photoshop CS Settings Where [username] is your login username.

Here's a new one I just ran into. I entered a new formula into a cell, and it just displayed the formula, instead of calculating the results. It turns out the problem was due to the field being formatted as a Text field. Unfortunately, just by changing the field to a Number does not solve the problem. You must change the field to a Number and then re-enter the formula.

One thing I've had to deal with in my last two (day) jobs is helping solve why some customers are unable to view our support and/or training videos. A recent problem for one customer led me to document what I know about the problems and likely solutions. Your feedback is welcome! Missing or out-dated codec. This applies to video files such as WMV, AVI, and MPG. These formats are all containers that can use various different codecs depending on the tool that was used to create. For example, GoToMeeting/GotToWebinar, WebEx, and TechSmith's Camtasia could all put out WMVs and AVIs, which have the same extension, but would not play unless you had their specific codec. Out-dated or missing player. This applies to MOV and RM. Since MOV is QuickTime, controlled by Apple, I don't often see problems because Apple pushes updates with iTunes. RM from Real Media is just not found much any more. When it is, most likely their is no player at all, so the download gets you the latest ver

I recently for the first time recorded a GoToWebinar presentation. GoToWebinar, from Citrix, provides the option for their own proprietary output or WMV. I took the WMV option, to make it easier for my viewers, and give me the option to clean up any errors in the presentation. Upon completion of the recording, I brought the WMV file into Windows Movie Maker. The source was 80MB (1 hr), and Windows Movie Maker split it into 8 pieces of various lengths. I performed normal edits, chopping out some dead space at two points, increasing the overall audio level, and adding intro and exit info. So far, so good. Upon trying to save my project is where I ran into troubles. Trying several different settings, closing other programs to free memory, and rebooting -- nothing worked; it would not output. I then decided to try another computer, and realized I needed GoToWebinars own codec -- this was my first clue that I may not be able to solve this problem. I tried two different encoders and importi

I had experienced problems with Word 2003 taking a long time to launch. I'm not sure when it occurred, though I suspect it was when I tested it as the email editing client for Outlook. Even though I disabled Outlook from using Word 2003, Word continued to launch slowly. I searched Google, but couldn't find much that would help. I resorted to using the Detect and Repair feature contained in the Help menu. After some processing, the Detect and Repair process asked me for my install disk. Since this is a company computer, Office was installed from a shared drive that I don't have access to, so I canceled the process. When I returned to Word, it acted as though it was the first time launching, and it now seems to open faster. Unfortunately, when I opened Outlook, it also acted like it was the first time launching. My profile was gone with my settings to access my email and the pointer to my email archives. Fortunately I keep all most of my email on the server, so I can access i

I had a fresh install of CorelDRAW X4, and each time I tried to start it, it would crash. After some searching through Google, I found the following fix. Open the folder C:\Program Files\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4\Programs\UIConfig\CorelDRAW Edit DrawUI.xml Find the line <dockpage guidref="bc1e2f70-3b58-41cd-8406-aaa550482972" visible="true" selected="true"> Change visible="false" and remove selected="true" <dockpage guidref="bc1e2f70-3b58-41cd-8406-aaa550482972" visible="false"> Save and close DrawUI.xml Fold down F8 and restart CorelDRAW X4 When prompted to update settings, select OK That did the trick for me. Apparently it is caused by a conflict with MFC dlls that are installed (version 1833) with SQL2008.

On February 26, 2009 I wrote about problems with XP and my CD/DVD drives . After a fix to the Registry, the last step was to re-install any software that I use to burn CDs and DVDs. It seemed all was good, but I apparently hadn't tried iTunes. The next time I launched iTunes, I was greeted with the following message: Warning! The registry settings used by the iTunes drivers for importing and burning CDs & DVDs are missing. This can happen as a result of installing other CD burning software. Please reinstall iTunes. With prior experience using iTunes, I was not about to uninstall iTunes. Instead I just tried a Repair through the Add/Remove Software interface. That failed. I then tried installing iTunes over my current install, and that failed too. Finally I went fishing on Apple's site. I found an entry that looked promising. Apple recommends I remove a Registry key, add an new one, and then re-install all CD/DVD burning software. Sounded a bit like a loop, so I tried just

I recently added a new email account to my Thunderbird client, and it failed in sending email (SMTP), though it did receive (pop3). I double and triple checked my configuration; I deleted and recreated the account; nothing seemed to work. I had two other SMTP accounts defined, and they never had the problem. Finally I found a reference (sorry I don't remember what website) that suggested trying to delete all my saved passwords. Sure enough, that did it. Even though when I had recreated the account I was challenged for password input on the first time, it had still failed. Also, I had copied and pasted the password from an alternate source, so I didn't make a typo. Some how the storage for passwords, just for the single account, was corrupt. If you use Thunderbird on Windows, to delete your passwords go to: Tools >> Options Click Privacy Click the Password tab Click Edit Saved Password Either click Remove All OR select the ones you want to delete and click Remove Click Clo

Recently I experienced several little problems with my Windows XP desktop. It started with losing the sound and the inability for Skype to answer. After trying various things, I rebooted, which brought back the audio and seemed to have corrected Skype. Unfortunately, I then lost my 2 CD/DVD drives plus one virtual CD/DVD drive. Losing the virtual drive should have been the clue, which I initially missed. They all displayed in the Systems hardware window, but with error 31 messages. After looking for and installing new or replacement drivers, I still had the same problem. I finally ran across a knowledge base article from Microsoft . You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: "error code 31" The solution was to delete two apparently corrupt Registry entries and then re-install all software that have a burn CD and/or DVD feature. A pain to go through th

Occasionally I find where IIS is hung, and I hate to have to reboot. Fortunately I found a web page that lists the command and switches you can use from the command line to accomplish the task. This is the same site, psacake.com that notified us of companies that would be closing after Christmas, so avoid getting gift cards from them.

Recently my Apple TV remote quit working. When I pressed the buttons, the light on the Apple TV lit, but nothing happened. I've since learned, similar to "pairing" your wireless key for your car, the Apple TV remote needs to be "paired" with your Apple TV. It's an easy process: Hold the Menu and Previous buttons for 6 seconds. You should see a new graphic appear, a remote and a broken chain. Then, Hold the Menu and Next buttons for 6 seconds. The graphic will go away, as you have just "paired" your remote with your Apple TV.

I got a new external hard drive to use for backups. Before starting, I wanted to format the drive as NTFS, instead of the default FAT32. When I tried though, the system always gave me an error message,"volume is in use by another process." Of course I checked and checked, and was certain nothing else was using the drive. It turns out that the drive when initial setup was added to the System Restore Monitoring; I needed to remove it to format the drive. Here's how to do that: Go to Start >> All Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools >> System Restore Click the System Restore Settings in the right pane Highlight the drive Click Settings Check "Turn off System Restore" on this drive Click OK Click OK again Click Cancel (to close the Welcome to System Restore dialog) For a drive that I am using as a backup drive (a data only drive), there is no reason to use System restore, so after formatting, I did not re-enable. Note that if you are a Win

One of my favorite applications for web application development, whether ASP, ColdFusion, or HTML and JavaScript is Dreamweaver. I currently use version 8, and for the first time I experienced a real problem. Every time I tried using Search & Replace, the dialog box would not appear and eventually Dreamweaver crashed. I tried updating to the latest version, 8.0.2, but that still didn't help. After no luck with some Google searching on "dreamweaver 8 find and replace crashes" I tried to do some Registry exploring and I figured out a solution. Upon initial exploration, I determined that Dreamweaver held various parameters specific to Search & Replace. After trying a few things, I found the ones that seem to be the culprits. Enough said, here are the steps: Close Dreamweaver Launch Regedit (Start >> Run...; Regedit; OK) Go to HK_users >> HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1606980848-1500820517-839522115-1689 Most of this key is going to be unique to you. If you

I recently got a new laptop with Windows XP and I'm slowly getting it configured to all my preferences. One thing I noticed is that everytime I rebooted, the Language Bar would reappear in the Taskbar. No matter how many times I removed it, it would rear its ugly head again. With a little research, I found out how to stop this nasty behavior. You need to un-register and re-register a DLL that controls the behavior. Specifically, here's what you do: Go to Start and click Run... Enter"Regsvr32.exe /u msimtf.dll" and click OK Go to Start and click Run... Enter "Regsvr32.exe msimtf.dll" and click OK Next time you reboot, it wont show up.