Facing troubles with Internet Explorer 9 to 11 download woes

Did migration for a client from the local profile onto a domain profile just a week ago. After which, she wasn't able to download any items from web pages any more. Chrome and Firefox works, just not Internet Explorer. We're talking about Windows 7 Pro 64-bit SP-1 here.

Started my google searches but couldn't zero-in to a specific issue until I found this:


related link - http://bremiclem.com/losa/2013/04/10/ie-temporary-internet-files-corruption

Apparently, the issue bottoms down to a corrupted user profile and something to do with permissions instead of the application itself.

The link didn't fully fix the issue, I still had to perform changes to the settings. Having said that, though the blog link above detailed a different kind of problem from what I was facing, I encountered the similar issue that's highlighted. Meaning, if I were to go into the temporary internet files configuration, I too, can't make the changes to the size to be saved on the system.

 

Website data settings will continually reset the size of disk space used to 0 MB.
The solution... 

1. renaming and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings\5.0
1.  Delete (or rename, if you want to be cautious) the following keys:
1. Cache
1. LowCache
2. deleting: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings\5.0\Cache\Extensible Cache
3. changing the temporary internet files download location to c:\temp (or any other folder as long as you have permission for read/write/modify to the folder)
4. restart the PC!

That's it!

All is well for me right after!

My Experience with upgrading of Windows 8 Pro to it's 8.1

I am using a Lenovo Thinkpad T440p with Windows 8 Pro stock installation, well-I inserted the recovery disks and re-format the system when I first got it from the suppliers.

Unfortunately, it didn't come pre-loaded with Windows 8.1, so I had to install this later on.

I followed the upgrade pre-requisites instructions and tried to ensure there will be no issues faced when running the upgrade. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The issues faced that the Upgrade Check found were:

1. Itunes requires me to de-list my authorization for the iphone - which I did.
2. I can't bring forward the Quicktime player, which means I'd have to re-install it later on.

The Issues that I faced after the upgrade which the check failed to see, however:

1. Virtual Box 4.3.6 was unable to run properly due to network adapter problems
2. Fences 2.01 was unable to run properly - I can't move any icons on the desktop
1. solution: Download the latest version of Fences 2.12, and re-install.
2. Restart PC and solve the issue
3. I got this inspiration from here

These are 2 of issues I've faced thus far. I hope no additional problems though.

My Experience with Lenovo Thinkpad T440p as my new Work-Horse!

It's the year of the horse here in Singapore, 2014... Well, at least I am entering into one in this coming year soon at the writing of this post. :)

I got a new work-horse in the horse year. Ha-ha-ha!

I was expecting a blow-me-away experience with fascination and wonder with the notebook, instead, I got more disappointment than joy at most cases. I believe this has to do with Windows 8 integration with Lenovo and not all Think-Family's fault, but nonetheless, it's a painful and not-so-enjoyable ride of the new 'horse'. 

I got the P series of the Thinkpad 440, supposedly the P series is meant to be a more powerful system as compared the "S" - slim, or the vanilla "nothing" - Thinkpad T440. I got mine with a HD+ screen (1600x900), 8-GB DDR3 memory, 1-TB disk, Core i7-4600M... What a powerful machine it is in contrast to all my other older machines I've used before!

I love the speed, look and usual ThinkPad beauties, unfortunately, the difference between the T430 (and before) were so vastly difference that I am contemplating if I should have purchased the T430 instead of this model.

Here are why:

1. lack of a wifi on/off button, basically the FN key button doesn't work well with Windows 8 at the moment
2. Fn key auto activated.. well as thinkpad engineer users, we use the F1-12 keys for different needs (refresh, close apps, etc), and setting it primarily as functions makes a lot of inconvenience.
3. the missing right and left clicks are a big no-no as the single touchpad, albeit more sensitive and smarter, still creates a double finger tracking issue at times with mouse going opposite directions when 2 fingers are resting on the pad
4. the missing light from the top of the screen.. I miss that.. I really liked that LED shining down from the top of the screen to the keyboard instead of the back-lit keyboard
5. no HDMI port.. oh man, why mini-display port and not simply a full HDMI port?
6. no HDD status LED. oh dear, there's no way I can figure if my disk is busy or it's not.
7. the stock power adapter is so bulky and heavy!
8. the stock HDD comes with a Western Digital 1-TB disk... oh man, I have had so many WD failures that I am a WesterDigiPhobic now...

These are just some of the painful experiences I've encountered with the notebook thus far. I do hope the list doesn't increase, but I'll update whenever I can, should I encounter more issues with it.

Other than that, the things I still love about this work-horse are:

1. The keyboard is lovely
2. The 4x USB ports are PERFECT
3. The adapter head that's inter-flip is cool and useful
4. The water-spill proof keyboard is a great addition to the feature-set
5. The screen is so-so-so-so very beautiful, crisp matte sharp-screen
6. The system is super-duper-fast! With whatever that I have thrown at it.

more to come I hope...

I will be changing the hard-disk to a Hybrid soon, let's see if there's any significant performance improvement!

Troubleshooting Steps in Common Microsoft Office and Other Applications

Sometimes we encounter weird problems that appear from time to time while using our PCs or notebooks. As such, we've got to be armed and ready to carry out some diagnostic tasks to ensure that we eliminate 90% of the possible issues system wide. If these steps could not resolve the issue, I'd recommend re-format and re-install Windows as it'll be faster and more cost-effective to do that as re-install of Windows these days are pretty 'fast'.

Provided of course, you have all the drivers information, back-ed up data and all applications needed for the re-installation.

The troubleshooting for Common Microsoft Office or application issues especially when Windows gets cranky are:

1. Try to repeat the problem to find a pattern to the issue. 
2. If you're able to, that's good because we'll rely on the pattern to troubleshoot the issue
3. General guideline for troubleshooting for Ms Office issues
4. Go with Microsoft way of i-fix it at http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/ 

If i-fix it can't fix it, then:

1. find out when the problem occured, and 
2. then try to perform a system restore to (Before the problem happened).

If there's no system restore, go with these steps: (outlined here) 
Basically in summary, it's run the diagnostic tool that comes free with Ms Office, from 2007 on-wards. Location of fix tool is in Programs > Microsoft Office  > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office Diagnostics.

Run all the diagnostics to ensure that the Ms Office installation and system is well.

In the event where there is no system restore and no diagnostics - (Tough luck) 
Or, the system diagnosis stated that all is well....

1. run registry repair using Ccleaner, backup registry first using the ccleaner tool, save it to my-docs folder
2. go to add-remove programs, perform repair of the Microsoft Office
3. restart system and run all ms office updates and windows updates

I believe this should resolve 90% of all Microsoft Office issues. Do let me know if you have comments or improvements!

Microsoft Office 2010 corruption and inability to re-install

A client called this morning with a may-day... Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business edition is unable to run.
As usual, tried the repair, even tried uninstall and re-install - hey, I have an adventurous client here! - but it did not resolve the problem.

To make things worse, the Ms Office is now unable to be installed with an error stating that there's error 2086. 
(I have already stopped the antivirus, run as administrator and saved the entire CD to my D drive...)

Went online, do my usual ritual of google-ing for things... 

1st link: doesn't help as i have given administrative rights to install and even tried turning off the antivirus (trend micro wfbs corporate)

2nd link: gave me more info on the nature of the problem. rooted to .net frame work installation that is required.

Decided to try doing a Windows update, and to my horror, .net framework 4.0 update failed with another error!

Windows update returned error 643, and upon searching for answers, found this link. 

Looked at both solutions, tried the Microsoft Fix-It first, duh- so easy... But it didn't resolve the problem.
Went on to the second solution to repair the .Net frame work client profile.... then restarted the machine.
After the machine restart, I proceed with the .Net framework 4.0 update again (which is successful). I do know that without this update, there is high possibility that I will not be able to install the MS Office 2010.

Aha! that solved the problem and Ms Office 2010 is successfully installed. Proceeding with Ms Office Service Packs and updates!!!

Mac OS X (all ver) has issues with DNS resolution IPv6 with SBS-2008

Some time back, the SBS-2008 my client has in their office is causing some DNS resolution issues with IPv6 reverse lookup. As such, some times the MAC OS X'es are unable to resolve DNS entries to get connected to the mail server.

A work-around my colleague gave was to set-up VPN connection as PPTP VPN using RAS gives out a separate IPv4 address, and is able to resolve IPv4 DNS requests without using the IPv6. 

While this is an easy work-around, the easier method is to simply set-up hosts file to perform the mapping.

Unfortunately for him, he was unable to locate the hosts file to edit in the mac os X. I did some search in the web and encounter this blog post... (here) I don't wish to re-invent the wheel, but I thought I'll post it here anyway, with some pictures to guide my readers and my team how to make the changes.

Follow my print-screens below. It should be self-explanatory.

just press CTRL+o (Omega) to save.

press Enter to save the changes.

You are good to go! 

Now for the biggie.. the server needs to be fixed with the IPv6 issue.

This is the issue:

I ensured that all settings are right:

 

After hunting through different blogs, i found one here and I realize this guy faced the similar problem and fixed the issue!

the mistake i made was to create 8.c.2.f.0 where I should have done it like this:

 

 Once added with an AAA record, the PTR can be added.

  

Resolution now works.. but the problem still persists!

Shucks! 

 

:

 

 

 

Adobe Reader does not show printer and Windows 7 is unable to change default printer

Client called today to report of problems related to printing.


She's generally able to print to her new Ricoh MFP C5000 Copier machine, but was unable to see this printer driver in Adobe Reader X. Strange as it may seem, this happened because I've set the printer up on a different domain user profile.

I repaired Adobe reader, ran all the updates, but to no avail. Even tried changing printer name to something shorter... Nope, it doesn't work. Gave user the change permission on the printer properties...nope!

Finally, as I was trying to set the printer as a default, I encountered an error:  

Unable to setup Default Printer, error message: 0x00000709

As I was looking through the net for similar issues, I encountered this forum post here.


I had to read through the entire 4-page long document and I finally figured that I could simply change the permission on the registry to allow EVERYONE full access to this registry key:

Found out that I didn't have the right permission to access the registry key here:

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows

All I needed was to give myself the full access permission and everything was fine after the reboot.

The thing I couldn't figure was, why is it only Adobe Reader X having this issue with not being able to detect the printer. Hmm...