Steve the IT Tech Guy

Enter Vista Zone

I recently upgraded my 5 year old P4 3GHz HT, 2 Gig, 320Gig Raid 1, FX5200 128meg PC (ya so old) to the following:

Core 2 Duo 3GHz (overclocked to 3.6)

4 GIG DDR2 (will probably bump to 8 since DDR2 is so cheap)

2 1 Terabyte WD Black (5 year warranty, fast) HD (RAID 1, HD’s DIE, I only RAID, I have been in this business too long to know this!!!)

ASUS P5Q MB (8 SATA 3G controller with RAID 0,1,5,10, max 16 GIG RAM, 8 way sound, and all the bells and whistles with the great ASUS boards) (I only deal with ASUS in the motherboards. They are the BEST in my opinion!)

ASUS 9600GT 512 Meg video card.

OK its not the top of the model but I get 5.9 out of 6 rating in Vista except for the 5.8 for the CPU. I never spend (well the company pays for it but being part owner I don’t want to spend too much) for the top Intel I7 with DDR3 mem, etc. But this is still one pretty fast PC.

So I decided I wanted a 64-bit OS. I decided Vista 64-bit. I have been raging on about Vista before (negative) . I tried it before SP1 and found it OK but not as fast as XP and with the hardware I had it really was not a great feeling. Since I stepped up the hardware I decided to give it a try. I was very impressed on the speed (Windows 7 should be even better when out full). Also the drivers were pretty good also. I had to change my HP Deskjet 6122 driver to a 990C (why HP does not provide it native is crazy). My other printers I downloaded fine. Scanner was an update driver. Even the ASUS RAID SATA driver was native to the 64-bit Vista so no verified driver issue. The PC is really fast!!!. I know the 64-bit OS increases the memory requirements but on the whole it boots faster than other 32-bit Vistas I deal with. Also the sleep mode actually works. On my older board only XP would sleep properly. I tried playing with Vista before and it never worked. I tried Ubuntu and still no go. Vista works. Only had one lockup so far. It was early in one program but it has not happen after this. So far I am impressed. The only issue I had so far is trying Frostwire. I believe its a java/64-bit issue but thats fine. I wanted to run this in a virtual machine in VMware any how ( to reduce the virus/spyware, etc).

I loaded it up with my usual applications (VMware 6.X, Office 2007, MS Sync, Logmein, Idrive, AnyDVD,AVG free,Picasa3, Firefox 3.X,Core FTP, GOM player,CS3MediaMonkey, etc,) and they all worked without a hitch. Will let you know later how things go but so far I am impressed.

I thought of going Ubuntu 64-bit but there are too many Windows apps I depend on to go through the hassel. I still run it through VMware (did I mention how I love this program) for the security etc.

Internet Explorer Freezes On Startup

Had a client that had IE7 froze on startup. I started to see if it was an add-in that cause the problem. Under Accessories-System Tools is an Internet Explorer (No add-ons). It basically does what it says. IE7 opened fine after I did this so I figured it was a corrupted add-on. To see what add-ons and disable the problem add-on you go to Tools-Internet Options, Programs tab. At the bottom is Manage Add-ons. As I looked through the add-ons I notest Yahoo Companion. I remembered a few years ago I had a major problem with Yahoo Toolbar causing similar issue. I went into add-remove programs and removed anything labeled Yahoo and then IE worked fine. The Yahoo toolbar/companion has to be the buggiest thing to install.

Vmware vs Virtual PC 2007 Network Speed

I have used VMware for several years and just love the product. When MS created Virtual PC 2007 I decided to give it a try. It is OK but its not as good. The only thing good is its free. I decided to try it out for a client that is running an old DOS application that only works with Lantastic (Ya there are a lot of people saying what the heck is that). Any how I Installed Virtual PC 2007 and installed Windows 98 guest. The application worked but when it starts and runs it was really slow accessing over the network. It even affected other PC’s on the network. I decided to then try VMware. Exact installation of Windows 98 and Lantastic and Application and it ran as fast if not faster than a regular PC running Windows 98. It seems Microsoft just can’t create applications like this very well. I have notest that in another application MS has created. Again its free so I guess you get what you ask for. Thats MS Steadystate. I tried it at a contract site where they are using Deep Freeze and the Deep Freeze is so much better. Its faster (no lag on start-up compared to Steadystate) and the Deep Freeze seems much more stable and less booting.

GMAIL For Home, OUTLOOK For Business

What got me started on this article is from a Digg article titled “Gmail Destroyed Outlook”. The other is a Windows Weekly podcast #92 where Leo and Paul discuss how Gmail is so better than Outlook. I agree with part of this. Outlook as a home user has its problems.

I use to be an Eudora fan. It would handle multiple email accounts. Had a quick search and there were 2 best parts that made it better than any other. Attachments were saved in a separate folder. Great for virus scan and searching and moving attachments. The second best part is you can grab the entire Eudora folder and move it to another computer or if you were upgrading your PC and create a shortcut to Eudora.exe and it worked. You did not have to reinstall, import email,addresses, email accounts. Lets see Outlook,Outlook express,Thunderbird, etc do this! With this great program there was one major problem. Like all other applications is I could not access my email from another PC either at home or away from home. This is where Gmail comes in.

I got me Gmail account way back when you had to get invited. I did not know anyone who had one but Kevin Rose was on the Screensavers and was giving away other peoples invites. I did not get in time the first round but the second I luckily did before the server crashed or all the invites were taken. I think Kevin has killed more Internet Servers than anyone from this and of coarse Digg. I had a Hotmail account but never thought it was just OK. Gmail rules!! With its huge space (7 gig and growing), fast search, multiple tags, import from many email accounts and the increasing add ons makes Gmail one of the best online email. Outlook with its PST format has an issue when it gets too big it gets sluggish. You fill Gmail up and there seems no slowness and the biggest thing is its available from anywhere. I don’t have to worry which PC has the email on it. When I switch from XP to Ubuntu to Server 2003 my mail is there. Their Spam filter is the best in the industry. When you have 5 email accounts coming into Gmail thats 5 spots where Spam comes in. Rarely does any get into my inbox. The only complaint I have with Gmail is you cannot send/receive .exe attachments. Even if they are zipped. I know they put this in for security and to reduce the virus infections but it would be nice to have an option to turn this on or off.

I love Gmail. Its great but I would not use it at our office. Outlook with Exchange is like 90% of all other businesses. What makes Outlook work is the shared Calendar, Contacts, central email backed up. Its a lot different than Outlook alone with a PST. If you have a laptop you can cache to your laptop and work offline. Similar to Google Gears now. You can also setup web access to your Exchange server. Also I use it to sync to my Blackberry for Contacts and Calendar. Emails are pushed onto my Blackberry. I also have Gmail on my Blackberry so I can access all me email anywhere.

I have way to many email accounts. Work, Gmail, email from ISP, website email,Blackberry ,contract college account and a few others for test purpose etc.

I just want to conclude that if you are a home user or a small business person, without Exchange especially if you travel a lot then Gmail is the way to go. If you are in a Business that has Exchange and all the perks of Exchange then Outlook is the only way to go. My Blackberry basically joins both for me so that I can read and respond quickly from any email application but for the long emails that I need to write I will use either Outlook or Gmail to get the job done.

Autologon For XP

Here is a great site that explains how to implement autologon for XP PCs both in and out of a Domain. Also a few other tricks.

Autologon for XP

Continue reading Autologon For XP

Error 550.5.7.1 Unable to Relay

Had this error on our exchange server. Could send out new e-mail but could not reply or forward and e-mail.

There could be several reasons for the above error. I recently ran into a specific situation on an Exchange 2003 Server where the Exchange administrator had recently configured some security options. Some of the clients on the Internet were using POP3 to access their e-mail. People on the internal network (e.g. techgalxaxy.net) were able to successfully send and receive e-mails from internal clients. However, from external POP3 clients on the Internet, users were unable to send e-mails to other domains (e.g. intel.com). They were getting Error 550.5.7.1 Unable to relay for… error in their Outlook clients. After running several tests and verifying that the third-party anti-spam software was not the culprit, I focused on the SMTP server. It turned out that the administrator had blocked the relaying for authenticated computers, which is allowed by default. As soon as that option was checked, the external clients were able to send out e-mails. Here’s the procedure for configuring this option. This procedure assumes you only have the Default SMTP Virtual Server running. You need to configure the following option on the specific SMTP server that’s having the problem. In Exchange System Manager, go to Servers, server_name, Protocols, SMTP, Default SMTP Virtual Server. Right-click Default SMTP Virtual Server and select Properties. Click the Relay button. Ensure that the box Allow all computers which successfully authenticate to relay, regardless of the list above is checked. If not, check the box and click OK twice. Restart your SMTP Virtual Server. Checking the above option doesn’t open your SMTP server for relaying. If you have any doubts, use the following URL to verify that your SMTP server is not relaying. http://www.abuse.net/relay.html User your SMTP server’s FQDN to test relaying, e.g. ns1.techgalaxy.net. You should see about 17 relay tests with a report of status at the end.

Stop Windows XP Nagging about Updates You Already Updated

Stop nagging XP Update

The End Of Windows 3.X

Here is an article I just came across. MS has stopped its licenses of Windows 3.X as of THIS November. I thought it was dead along time ago. Who knew. I started on DOS and Windows 3.0 in College.

Say It Ain’t So: The Death of Windows 3.X

Background on XP Can’t Change

Found this on the Internet. Looked at a lot of fixes and this is the only one that helped me. If you can’t change the background screen on XP because everything is grayed out this. Suggest backing up the Registry first. Here is a great utility for this. Then try the following:

Make a registry edit (backup each registry key before deleting each value)

Delete the value named “NoChangingWallPaper” from these two registry keys
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\ActiveDesktop
and/or
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\ActiveDesktop

Delete any default wallpaper value set in this key (if it does already exist)
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\System
Delete these two values named “Wallpaper” and “WallpaperStyle” (if it does exist)

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Modify the value data of the value named “Wallpaper”
from whatever value you’re now having to “(None)”
(if it does exist)

PowerPoint File Won’t Open From Outlook Express

Found this on the Internet. It occurs when you have Windows XP with SP2 and are using MS Powerpoint Viewer 2003 or 2007. If you try and open the attachment from Outlook Express it gives an error. The following gives you some options:

Powerpoint won’t open from Outlook Express

One of the options is to download a registry fix. Here is the pvregfix.exe file. Just save the file to say your desktop and then run it. It will then allow you to open from Outlook Express.

Steve the IT Tech Guy

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