Steve the IT Tech Guy

Computer Tech Help, Reviews, Discussions

Outlook 2010 Gives ‘Cannot Open Outlook’ Error

A client that mixed up installing different versions of Office 2010. Has Office 2010 Pro and installed Office 2010 Business had an issue of starting Outlook 2010. It would give “Cannot Open Outlook” or “Cannot start Microsoft Outlook” error. When I went into Control Panel on Mail it would not start and would give an error “Your system needs more memory or system resources. Close some windows and try again”. So I could not go in and create a new Outlook Profile. I tried uninstalling all of Office 2010 and installed just the 2010 Business but it still came up with the same results. I searched online and people said if you created a new windows user profile it will work. I am sure it would have but I did not really want to go through the hassle of setting up everything on the new profile. I came across this MS thread and this article that someone answered that fixed my issue. The fix was to go into the registry and rename a register item:

Open regedit (press WinKey+R, enter “regedit” in the Open field, then press Enter). Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\

Look for Windows Messaging Subsystem

Right-click on it and rename it to Windows Messaging Subsystem OLD

Close regedit and start Outlook. It will start the wizard for creating a profile.

Error Print Spooler Full When Printing After Windows Upgrade To Windows 8.1

Everything was fine printing in Windows 8. Did the Windows 8.1 upgrade and could not print to anything. Even a PDF creator. Would give error print spooler full.

The cause is my HP all-in-one Photosmart c309g printer. If you get the error I suspect its a HP driver issue.

Solution was to remove all of the HP driver from Control Panel – Programs And Features. Restart the PC and then reinstall the HP driver (using the latest driver from HP website).

Move WSUS on SBS 2008 and SBS 2011

Here are 2 articles that explain how to move the WSUS on SBS servers. The main issue to remember for both of them is when you run the SQL Server Management Studio is right-click on it and RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR. If you don’t you won’t be able to connect to the database.

SBS 2008 Article

SBS 2011 Article

Both are very similar its just that 2008 uses the 2005 version of SQL and 2011 uses the 2008R2 version.

The database address is both:

\\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query

Simply and Sage 50 Firewall Settings

When Setting up Simply Accounting or the newer Sage 50 software you will need to modify the firewall if you are running a multi user version. On the server or workstation where the data sits you will need to either disable the firewall or I recommend modify the firewall to allow the application and ports to allow to talk through. Why Sage does not do this when installation I don’t know.

Here are the applications and ports that you will need to allow in the firewall. This example is for Sage 50 Canadian Edition but older Simply would be similar:

Most firewalls will prompt you for access when Sage 50â€”Canadian Edition is opened for the first time. It is important to allow all processes from Sage 50 through your firewall. If any processes are blocked, Sage 50 will not operate correctly. In the event that you block a Sage 50 process from running, you will need to go into the exceptions or permissions area of the firewall and allow full access to the process. (Consult your firewall’s documentation if unsure how to add exceptions/permissions.)

These are the Sage 50â€”Canadian Edition processes that must be allowed through the firewall:

Alchemex.NET.Installation.Advertise.exe
BlCore.exe
Sage50Accounting.exe
Sage_SA_upload.exe
Sage_SA_Policy.exe
simplyurl.exe
Sage_SA_webhelp.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]

mysqld-nt.exe
mysqladmin.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.0.38\mysql

SimplyConnectionManager.exe
Simply.SystemTrayIcon.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Winsim\ConnectionManager

Sage_SA.TransactionManager.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Winsim\TransactionManager<version> – <country>

AlchemexPolicy.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\PO

Sage_SA_conv150.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv150

Sage_SA_conv160.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv160

Sage_SA_conv170.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv170

Sage_SA_conv180.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv180

Sage_SA_conv190.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv190

Sage_SA_conv200.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\simconv200

Sage_SA_upgradejet.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\Conversion\Upgradejet

Sage_SA_ErrorLogSubmitter.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\LogSubmitter

Sage_SA_TST.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\TST

Sage_SA_DBVerifier.exe

Located in C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]\dbverifier

Note: If you are using 64-bit windows, you should find those folders in C:\Program Files(x86). If you chose a different install location other than the default program files location, substitute your custom location for C:\Program Files\Sage 50 [Your Product Solution] [Year]. If you are using Sage Simply Accounting 2012 or prior, the folder name will be C:\Program Files\Sage Simply Accounting [Your Product Solution] [Year].

You also need to add ports 13531, 13540 – 13542 into your firewall allow lists. Those are the ports used by Connection Manager and the data files of Sage 50â€”Canadian Edition.

SBS POP3 Connector Gives Errors If C: Partition is less then 4 Gig

A few of my clients are running POP3 Connector on Windows SBS servers (2003,2008 and 2011). The issue is if the disk space gets below 4 Gig on the C drive it will not retrieve the email. This also happens if you use a 3rd party utility like POPcon.

If you can’t free up space on the C drive you can bypass this. I found this from this Article about POPcon:

This error message is generated by Exchange and just relayed by POPcon. With this SMTP error message Exchange is telling us that no new emails are accepted because the harddisk space is less than 4GB.

This is a MS TechNet article on the Exchange feature: Back Pressure.

Not sure if it’s a good idea but one user found out that it is possible to turn off backpressure totally:

Open the EdgeTransport.exe.config file from \Exchange Server\bin directory using notepad and change <add key=”EnableResourceMonitoring” value=”true” /> to value false.

Then restart exchange transport service.

TV Thickness Over The Years

Well over the years I have 3 types of TV’s. CRT, LCD and LED. There is OLED but I can’t afford it. It looks nice but there is a current life to the TV compared to the others.

So I will start with my first large TV. Its a 32 inch Panasonic TV. At the time (can’t remember but many years ago) I paid approx. $1100. It has PIP (Picture in Picture). Was popular back then but not really a feature popular now. It still works flawless (I feel Panasonic makes great products from phones (the only home phone I buy) to TV’s).

As you can see the thickness is very large (let alone the weight of approx. 150 lbs).

I then purchased a 42″ LCD Sony. It was at the time approx. $1500. It works well but have found over time that it takes a few minutes to warm up. Picture quality is better than the CRT (especially from a computer with HDMI).

As you can see the thickness is much smaller and the weight is dramatically less.

I then purchased an LED TV to replace my CRT. Its a SHARP 60″ LED at a approx. cost $1300 (on sale) and the picture is excellent. I do find some really high def programs a bit too detail and the shows look kind of fake or actual video take but on the whole I find it great. (My preference of TV brands if I can afford them and what they offer in this order are Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp) The Sony I got looked the best of what I saw at the time so this is why I went with it.

As you can see it is the thinnest TV I have ever had. The weight (even being 60″) is less than the 42″ LCD and much less than the CRT.

I know the OLED TV’s are even thinner and some have an option of being curved. When the price drops dramatically I can see these being very popular but the issue I have is the life cycle. Right now from what I read they don’t stand up to the other TV’s on the market. This can change as time passes and I am sure they will make them (or something different) better,cheaper, larger.

Some of you are saying “What about Plasma?”. Well I have never thought of going there because of the power consumption. The early Plasma had an issue of burn in. The newer ones don’t but there are a lot of manufactures that have stopped production because of the demand for the LED TV’s. I know some of the Plasma TV’s quality is better than the LED’s but it goes by demand. (VCR one over BETA because of popularity not quality).

This is my 2 cents. What have you experienced with TV’s over the years?

On-board Intel RAID1 Failed To Boot

On one of my servers I am using the On-board Intel RAID 1 setup with 2 WD Black 1TB drives. The server is running Windows 2008R2. The other day the Intel Raid software said that the one drive had failed. Sometimes I just re-enable the drive and have it re-mirror and everything is OK. Not this time. After part way through the server restarted and it would not boot. I check the BIOS and it does not give me the Intel Raid controller as an option to boot. The Raid Controller says that it Failed. The one drive was totally failed. The other said it was a member drive and the bootable option said NO. I tried changing the BIOS from RAID to AHCI or IDE compatible, either one would start Windows, give a brief blues screen of death and then reboot. I tried disconnecting the failed drive and it still did the same thing. Everytime I set the BIOS to RAID it would not show up as an option to boot from. I decided to Ghost (Acronis) the good drive to another just in case. I then attached the good drive and a new blank drive to the controller. I then went into the RAID controller and changed the drives to Non-Member drives. After this it would boot into Windows fine. I started the Intel Raid Manager software and created a new RAID specifying it to mirror from the good drive over to the new blank drive. Several hours later I was back in business.

I love the BIOS (Fake RAID) for some of these reasons. Because Windows is not doing the mirroring I don’t have to worry about changing drives to dynamic and breaking mirrors etc. Usually taking a good BIOS RAID 1 drive out should let you boot into a similar MB etc. But sometimes when things happen like this it gives me concern.

Can Only Go To Some Websites. Could Be MTU Needs Changing

Client that just bought a new Windows 7 PC having issues getting POP3 email and going to certain websites. They are using a really old PC as their router. I had to lower their MTU value on the PC in order to get everything working.

Normally you don’t have to change the MTU but dealing with older routers or certain ISP’s this will help. Most routers will auto adjust your need.

First thing I had to do is determine what value works. The easiest way to do this is run the following from a dos prompt:

ping www.google.com -f -l XXXX (thats -F -L but need to use lowercase and XXXX is the MTU value to test).

MTU start as high as 1500 (this is the normal default setting for most routes/PC’s etc). If 1500 does not work (which probably won’t even work with regular setup) you will get a message:

Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set

start to lower the MTU to say 1492. Normally I have to go down to 1460 and then I will get the normal ping response.

Once you know your value then you need to first check the current MTU value and which interface you are using. Run the following:

FOR VISTA-7

netsh interface ipv4 show subinterface

FOR XP

netsh interface ip show interface

by default the MTU will be 1500 and the interface is Local Area Connection

Now to change the MTU permanently on boot you will need to Run As Administrator the following command in Windows 7:

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “Local Area Connection” mtu=XXXX store=persistent

(Where XXXX is the new MTU value Example 1460)

If you just want to test it then remove the store=persistent. But after reboot it will go back to its default.

If you are on Windows XP then download a utility called DrTCP. It will do this for you in GUI.

Bring Back F8 Boot Menu For Safe Mode In Windows 8

Found this on the Internet from Lifehacker

Windows 8 has a new bootloader designed for UEFI devices, and with it, they’ve removed the F8 shortcut for quickly booting into safe mode. Here’s a quick way to bring it back.

The new tiled bootloader is pretty, but it has its annoyances. For example, if you want to boot into a different OS or boot into safe mode, you have to boot up your computer, then reboot into the option you choose—unlike the old bootloader, which would just take you straight to your alternate OS or boot right into safe mode.

To bring back the faster, simpler, old school bootloader from Windows 7 and before, you just need to run a simple command:

Open up the Start menu or screen and type “cmd.” Right-click on the Command Prompt selection and choose “Run as Administrator.”

Run the following command:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

Restart your computer. You can now press F8 before the blue Windows logo appears to see your advanced boot options.

You can still enter Windows 8’s new tiled Repair menu by choosing “Repair Your Computer” at this menu, which is nice. If you want to reverse this process just run:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard

Restart your computer and it’ll go back to Windows 8’s newfangled way of doing things.

The PC Is Not DEAD!

I see and hear all this “The PC is Dead”. Really?? For a business perspective NO. Lets see your secretary use an iPad for word processor. Every business I know will always use a desktop running Windows. With XP ending support in 2014 I can see the sell of PC’s going up for the next year. My main support are for business’s and this will be the norm for a long long time.

For the home I can see it to decline for the average user. Some one that ONLY needs to surf the Internet or check email then an iPad or other tablet will probably be all they need. Any one that needs to work at home, do home work, average stuff or gaming you then need a desktop or laptop. If you want to surf the Internet and create a document then MS Surface could be fine. For me though it will never be a replacement. I have an iPad. I use it all the time. When I am at home I have my iPad at arms reach all the time. I use it to surf the Internet. Its great to do a quick search (don’t have to start my laptop or go down and go to my PC). I can get all my email and I can play a few games. I can listen to music and watch the odd video. Its great. But I will NEVER get rid of my PC. The desktop with mouse/keyboard with multiple monitors is the best way to enter content period!! I prefer my desktop even over my laptop when I need to work. Writing this post would be dreadful on my iPad. OK on my laptop but much better on the PC. This will not go away for a long time. When I look around my house I see 5 PC’s. 2 are attached to 2 TV’s and the 3 others are for the kids and me. My laptop is mostly only used for work when I need to use it onsite for clients. My kids are into MineCraft. You need a PC. They need to use it to do some home work using a word processor. They need a PC. When they get older for university etc they will need a PC.

This is my point of view. What is your view?

Steve the IT Tech Guy

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