Steve the IT Tech Guy

Liking Windows 10 When Changing Hardware

I have an old Acer AMD small desktop for 7 years. It has worked great for what I need. I basically have it attached to my main TV upstairs to allow me to run Kodi, Netflix etc. I changed the HD a while back from the standard SATA HD with an older 120GB SSD because I don’t need the space. Just the speed. Everything was working fine till lately that it was freezing restarting etc. Tried a few things to change but basically feel its the motherboard that was causing the issue. So I got a used i3 desktop. Moved the HD and the Wifi PCIe Wifi adapter. It booted, restarted a few times picking up new hardware and there I was I did not have to install hardware drivers. The motherboard, CPU, chipset, video card are all different and it booted fine and installed all the drivers. They were standard devices so Windows found the drivers fine. If I had a special video card or sound card I likely would have to reinstall the drivers but since the hardware was not something largely normal it worked fine. If I tried to do this with Windows XP I likely would have had to do a repair. Something that I wish was available with Windows 7. Windows 7 might have refused to boot and would have done a new install.

Even after all this I even did not have to activate the Windows. Something that I have done before and I had to reactivate. If I had to do this I was not worried. The PC came with a Windows 7 Key so I could have used this if needed.

Administrator On Server Gets Error When Trying To Personalize Desktop Icons

I have seen this on many of my servers when I am a Domain Administrator on a 2012 or 2016 server and try and configure to add Computer icon on desktop under personalize (and other things) I get the following error:

C:\Windows\system32\rundll32.exe

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.”

Found the solution here.

Basically run gpedit.msc

Then go to Computer Configuration—> Windows Settings—> Security Settings —> Local Policies—> Security Options, then enable “User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account”, after all restart Windows to take effect. Figure as below:

Delete Old Windows Backups

When using Windows Backup on servers it seems that the backup drive can get full. MS is suppose to automatically clean up backups but I find it does not.

For my example I have a backup drive on G: drive. To clean up old backups off this drive you open a command prompt with Administrator privileges then type the following:

diskshadow

Then type one of the following.

To delete just the oldest backup type:

delete shadows oldest G:

To delete all the shadow backups from G:

delete shadows volume G:

Info from the following sites

site1

site2

Outlook Can’t Open Attachments

Have seen this on a couple computers. Usually people running Outlook 2010. After a Windows/Office update they can’t open attachments. In Outlook it will specify something like attachment is unsafe. One of them was .docx. Microsoft does not want you to open their own file format for Word in Outlook!! I understand why they are providing better security but if you can’t open attachments in Outlook that you normally would it gives major problems.

The culprit is an Outlook Security update (KB3203467) for Outlook 2010 or (KB3191932) for Outlook 2016. This update came from June 13th 2017.

Caused by KB3191898 Outlook 2007
KB3203467 Outlook 2010
KB3191938 Outlook 2013
KB3191932 Outlook 2016.

Here is a site that describes others having this issue. Likely will be fixed in next round of updates I hope.

To fix the problem is to uninstall the update from Control Panel-Program and Features-Show updates and search for it. Once uninstalled you will need to hide this update so that it will not come back. For Windows 10 you will need a utility to hide the update.

Addendum

Here is an article from Windows Secrets that also talks about the issue and currently no fix.

Mapi was unable to load the information service APLZOD.dll

Client with Outlook 2016 with iCloud add-on could not open Calendars. Got the following error:

The set of folders cannot be opened. An unexpected error has occurred. MAPI was unable to load the information service C:\PROGRA~2\COMMON~1\Apple\INTERN~1\APLZOD.dll. Be sure the service is correctly installed and configured.

Its related to iCloud not working. Googled it and there were some suggestions. Here is one.

Another suggestion it could be related to latest Outlook 2016 security update (KB3191932) for Outlook 2016 that came out June 14, 2017 but that was not installed. After trying a few things I had to repair iCloud for Programs and Features. Restarted. Went into iCloud settings and removed the sync to Outlook. Then enabled the sync to Outlook and it solved the problem.

Is There A Laptop That You Can Change Battery Easily

I currently have 2 Laptops that I use. I have an 8+ year old Acer Travelmate core 2 duo Laptop I use for work. Rarely used. Battery changed about 4 years ago but now battery does not last that long. I use it to troubleshoot network issues. It still works well. Has a 500GB WD Black drive. Boots decently speed for the age of it. It still works well so I am not complaining. My second laptop I have basically use at home and currently using now. I love this laptop!! The biggest issue about it is that it has a MAJOR issue boot from cold. Its a Lenovo E540. Its an issue that majority ALL users that own it have had. Basically Lenovo says there is no issue. With the amount of users that have the same issue with the same product and they will not do anything unless it was still under warranty and people that did get a replacement still have the same issue. If it was not the cold boot issue (basically it will not boot and the only way to get it to boot is either disconnect the CMOS battery or remove mem (which is very easily done)). Some times it works for the first time. Other times it does not. What I do to prevent this to happen is keep the laptop in sleep mode. If I close the lid it goes to sleep. I have change all settings such that it would take 4 days to not be in sleep mode. I keep it plugged in all the time.

So why do I love this Laptop. First it has a i7-4720HQ CPU. Its a true quad core with HT for a laptop. Second it has 8GB Ram and 128GB SSD HD. The keyboard is the best keyboard on a laptop I have ever dealt with. It has a DVD, full Ethernet adapter, VGA, HDMI full USB ports and a removable battery!! It may be a bit more than most laptops but its expandable and a removable battery!! It currently the 2nd fastest CPU I have at home compared to my sons desktop i7.

It has Windows 10 with no bloatware. It takes fewer than 4 seconds to boot from hibernation. Under 1 second from sleep. It boots extremely fast!! Every PC/ Laptop should do the same!!

So the 2 laptops I have can easily change the battery. I have notest over the last few years is that its extremely hard to find a laptop that you can easily change the battery ( let alone mem or hd).

One example is I have supplied high end HP Laptops . I liked them because for expand ability was one large back plate with no screws open the option to replace memory, hd and battery. They changed the model and now it takes lots of screws to undue the back plate. (It would not be much to be the way the older way would be!!) . That frustrates me!!

It seems any laptop,tablet and sometimes all in one PCs now a day is a throw away. The companies can make more money if the people change their product ever 4 years rather than upgrade or replace batteries etc!!

Outlook Prints Only One Page Then Stuck

At a clients site that was having printing issues. Could print from any program fine except Outlook. Soon as they printed from Outlook it would only print first page and then nothing else and nothing else could print until turning the printer off then on. Turns out that the page type in the memo style printing from Outlook was A4 type paper and not letter. Changed it to letter and everything is printing fine. Seems changing the type in the memo style stays till you change it again.

Also to set the default paper type in the memo style change it here:

Click on File > Print > Print Options > select “Memo Style” and then click “Define Styles” > Click “Edit” > Then select the “Paper” Tab, and select your paper Type etc.

Eastlink Arris Modem/Router DG3270 With Maestro Setup With Another Router

I just recently switch from Bell ADSL 10MBit/1MBit service (Fastest Bell can offer at my location) to Eastlink Cable Internet 150MBit/10MBit service. The cost of Bell with Satellite and Phone is more than what I am paying for Eastlink TV/Internet/Phone and I’m getting 150MBit service!!

Now I have a main ASUS RTN-66U router I use with Tomato firmware on it. Its setup with VPN and other stuff I like. Issue is with the new Eastlink Modem/Router it says because its Maestro package I can’t change it to just a modem in bridge mode or it will kill my TV service. My solution for this is I setup a DMZ to an IP of 192.168.0.X I then change my ASUS router to use the same static IP on the WAN side. Now my VPN and other stuff is working!

Windows Pro PC Can’t Join Domain

Client trying to join a new Windows 10 Pro PC to a Windows 2008R2 Domain. The error he is getting is the following:

“The DNS SRV records required to locate a AD DC for the domain are not registered in DNS. These records are registered with a DNS server automatically when an AD DC is added to a domain, They are updated by the AD DC at set intervals, This computer is configured to use DNS servers with the following IP addresses:

After Googling it found the solution for them was to disable IPV6 on the workstation. Join the domain and then you can renable IPV6 if needed.

Another solution for similar issue was to make sure that the domain contains the full name.

Example use Domain.local and not just Domain.

Windows 10 1703 Creator Update

So I have tried the latest Windows 10 Creator. Actually started the update before April 11 launch. Easily done by downloading the ISO from Microsoft.

Lately this is the only way I have started the updates. I download the ISO. Extract to a folder on my C: drive . Then run the setup as administrator (right click and run as administrator). Find it faster (especially on multiple PCs to update).

So for now I have updated 4 of the 5 main PCs I run Windows 10 and I have to say so far so good. The 5th will be my main work PC which I will likely do next week. I first started on my one laptop. I7 with SSD. Fairly new and it took for the main part 45 min. Then there were updates after. I see that even if I had the latest Office 2016 updates there were still major updates for Office. Not sure if its latest Windows 10 or the multiple Office updates lately. 3 days after April 11 there was an accumulative update for 1703. Next is my Acer AMD little computer with a fast SSD. I only basically run Kodi on it. This only took 30 min mostly to update. Seems the limited apps you run and SSD makes a big difference in update speed. Again everything went well.

Next was my main PC I use at home. First gen i7 with SSD. Lots of apps etc. One thing during the main upgrade process it said it needed to remove steamvm. Next it said I needed to remove some file I did not find in add remove programs but was related to steam. Once I uninstalled steam (which uninstalled my games ((Technically my sons friends games)) it restarted the update process). About 45 min later the main update was done.

So my last update PC is the one I expected trouble. There was some trouble but better than expected. My last PC is my main multimedia PC. Its an i5 3570 3rd gen CPU. ASUS motherboard. Nvidia GTX 640 video card and 7 TBs of Sata drives mostly RAID1 drives. I mostly have Kodi running with Plex and a bunch of other video and music sharing 3rd party utilities and Hyper-V. I have tried twice and it tried automatically tried to update to Windows 10 1607 Anniversary with no luck. It would start and in the last process would crash and I would have to revert back to 1511. So the initial update to 1703 worked fine. No errors, did the update in about 50 minutes and everything went well. The only thing I had to do was change the default resolution from 1600X1200 to 1920X1080 (connected to a 60 inch TV HDMI). I then had to scale the screen so it would fit in Nvidia utility. The last part I have had to do every time a video update occurs.

So then I did a Windows update. One of the updates was the video driver changing from 2015 driver to a 2016. Everything looked OK till part way through it went to a black screen with the mouse cursor. It was stuck on this. I then hit the power button to do a shutdown and it went fine so I knew the OS was fine figured it was a video driver issue. Started it again. Again went to a black screen with mouse cursor. There was a hourglass icon beside that reminded me of Windows 3.1 hourglass icon. Yes my 2017 PC went back in time to 1992!!. Hit the power button a few other times and then it went to a normal Windows updating screen. Then It auto logged in and back to a 1600X1200 screen. Changed back to the 1920X1080 and scaled it to normal. Rebooted one more time and everything seems to be working fine. I figured this was a video driver issue. Glad that was all that I had to encounter.

Conclusion for me on updating to Windows 10 Creators. Seems to upgrade fine for me. I can’t say that for everyone. Prior to updating found others with issues. But for me went OK. One other thing is it went better for me than Anniversary when it deals with ClassicShell (Utility I install on all my Windows 10 PCs) and my multimedia PC. In this upgrade after the upgrade , ClassicShell popped up a screen saying it needed to fix something. After that it worked fine. Better than a reinstall of ClassicShell I had to do with Anniversary update.

About the update itself I don’t find any improvements or features. There is the the 3D Paint that’s cool. I did find that on the right-click on the normal start menu that they removed the Control Panel. Another legacy thing that Microsoft is trying to remove. Also another reason to install ClassicShell. Sorry I go to these places or a regular basic and if I have to remember 4 or more clicks that normally took me 2 on Windows 7 for something that should be there then why remove it. The right-click on the start menu is for Windows tech people. Why remove features that we will need for the next few years. I know MS is trying to eliminate the legacy stuff like Control Panel BUT if its still relevant today why remove it!!

Steve the IT Tech Guy

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