Vista - Windows Help Error Message

Here is a little something that caused me to have a little chuckle:



This happened to me when I tried to open the help that is associated with the IIS 6 Diagnostic Tool WFetch 1.4.

I headed on over to Microsoft's KB 917607 page and low and behold here is what I found:

... the Windows Help program has not had a major update for many releases and no longer meets Microsoft standards. Therefore, starting with the Microsoft Windows Vista and the Microsoft Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn" operating system releases, the Windows Help program will not ship as a component of Windows. Also, third-party programs that include .hlp files are prohibited from redistributing the Windows Help program together with their products. Users who want to view 32-bit .hlp files must download the program from the Microsoft Download Center, and then install it on their computers. The download for Windows Help is still in development and will be available in early 2007 [Emphasis mine].

Wow, kinda leaves a whole lot of us in a bit of a pickle eh? Have a program coded with the old Windows Help setup you need to access while installed on Vista?

Not going to happen!

The pain of it though, the program WFetch 1.4 is BY Microsoft! :*P

Oh well, I guess it is another little thing that will hopefully be made right at some point as per the KB article!

And, maybe another reason for some to not install Vista at this point.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS 2003 SP1 Premium - Can no Longer Connect to Companyweb

Within the last couple of days our Companyweb page would no longer show up on our client workstations here at home.

Nothing has changed, other than the fact that I have just done Phase 2 of a Swing Migration on this network. We have a new server to replace the ageing 1U that is currently serving our SBS needs.

I thought that it might have been TempDC's presence in AD and DNS that was messing things up. But cleaning out AD of TempDC's presence did nothing to fix it.

With the help of a tool called WFetch 1.4 which is part of the IIS Diagnostics Toolkit, and can be obtained here, I was able to figure out that I could connect to Companyweb when the tool specifically had port 8080 as the port to connect to.

I received a host not found error if port 80 was the port to connect to.

It has been a bit of a puzzle. The only other thing that I could think of that has changed was the update for the ISA firewall client to make it compatible with Vista. I am not sure if this is the culprit yet as I will need to test it further.

Armed with the above info, it came to me that when WFetch was directed to port 8080 it was being told to work WITH the proxy server for local addresses, and not BYPASS it.

I opened the Connections properties for IE's LAN Settings, unchecked, "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" and voila!

We now have our Companyweb back.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

The Mac versus PC Ad thing...

As a passionate PC user, I find the PC versus Mac thing sometimes very funny.

I do believe that Macs have their place in the world, just not mine.

Not after that *#()#! Mac ate my floppy with my third year Psychology paper the evening before it was due. I had been working on that one for a while, and it was quite a frustrating experience as both the the U. Support staff were unable to help, and the stupid machine refused to release my disk. U. Support came down the next morning when the lab was open to reboot the Macs to get them back, and I got my floppy finally...but no paper. :*P

That had happened before, but not leaving me disk-less, and with no damage to the contents.

I swore off Macs after that. At least I could manually remove my floppy from the PC machine behind me, and I would have had options for recovering the data from it too.

Yes, my PC machine was temperamental too, but I had the knowledge and capability to deal with those eccentricities and work with or around them. And I could backup my work.

Recently, Apple has had those PC and Mac commercials. Not being much of a TV watcher, I haven't really seen too many of them.

But, I certainly have heard about them from both PC and Mac camp friends and acquaintances.

Charlie Brooker has a great take on those commercials in his article, "I hate Macs". It is a good read, and quite funny.

And, btw, I do show my bias for liking this particular article! :D

Thanks to Vlad for pointing out this great read.

Happy PCing,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Office 2007 and IE 7 peformance on XP Pro Versus Vista Business

Is it just me, or does Office 2007 and IE 7 run like dogs on XP Pro SP2?

The reason I ask this is because the XP Pro SP2 based system I run in the Office is no slouch!

• Intel QX6700 Quad Core Extreme


• Intel 975XBX


• ATI X1900 CrossFire & X1900XTX Video


• 4 GB Kingston RAM

It may be possible that I am experiencing some sort of configuration issue, but nothing comes up in the diagnostics for Office that I can see.

The system at Home running Office 2007 and Vista Business is configured as follows:

• Intel P4 650 3.4 GHz. HT


• Intel D925XCEV2


• ATI X850 PCI-E


• 4 GB Kingston RAM

Office runs so smooth, as does IE 7.

When it comes to IE 7, we are running a smaller Internet connection at home, 1.5 Mb/s as opposed to the 4.0 Mb/s here in the office where the XP box is. Makes for even more puzzlement.

Same sites on both machines, XP & IE 7 renders slower than Vista and IE 7.

I can remember hearing at the various Microsoft events that I attended that Vista, Office 2007, and IE 7 were meant for each other.

This experience of mine working with both OS configurations on fairly high end machines definitely puts some truth to that!

By the way, both the home and the office are Small Business Server 2003 Premium integrated with Exchange 2003 SP2.

The big thing for me at this point is to wait until the more exotic components that I have plugged into the system here in the office has Vista drivers that are no longer in Beta. I will then blow away the box and build on Vista Ultimate as we are licensed for it via our Software Assurance.

In my experience, Vista, Office 2007, and IE 7 rock together!

Happy Vista, Office 2007, and IE 7 Operating!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Coding CSS Resource - CSS-Discuss.org

For those of us who dabble, or work full time coding Web sites, there is an excellent mailing list that can help you work through the many browser hoops needed to get your CSS working!

The CSS-Discuss.org list is one of the best resources I have come across.

There are a number of very helpful people on the list who will help you validate your CSS, work with the Box Model browser hoops, and more.

Happy Coding,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Software Assurance Image Downloads = .img?

When dealing with a client recently who has Software Assurance, we went to download their updated software as per their SA Agreement.

Here is what we ended up with:


Okay, the file's label says, "ISO", but the actual extension is .IMG.

What gives?

Seems that one need only RENAME that .IMG to .ISO and away we go! :D

Burn The ISO to disk, and then go ahead and run the software install/upgrade.

Thanks to the TechNet Forums for this one (You will be asked to create an identity for the forums to view this link).

Happy with Software Assurance!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.

Outlook 2007 - OLMAPI32.DLL Error

We are just finishing up a fresh SBS 2K3 R2 Premium install.

Our clients obtained Office 2007 Enterprise via Software Assurance. A really good deal when one gets to see just how much extra is included btw.

Still haven't worked out O2K7 installation via Group Policy yet. But, that is another post...

All of the machines installed the same except for one. On that one, when I fired up Outlook I received the OLMAPI32.DLL Error.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just that one little button with an OK!

After some searching, it was discovered that one needed to remove any previous versions of Outlook and/or Office. Well, I chose the REMOVE ALL PREVIOUS VERSIONS during the install process.

So, I assumed that there was nothing there!

WRONG...

Not only was there something there in the Add/Remove Programs group, the Office XP install/remove program would no longer work!

I downloaded the Office XP/2002 Resource Kit to obtain the Removal Utility. That didn't work.

Fortunately, our client has the original install disks. I ran the Office XP install, rebooted, and then with the Office XP installation struggle out of the picture, to then UNINSTALL it again!

After a reboot, Outlook would not fire up. I received the same error.

I then had to head to the control panel, add-remove programs, click on Office 2007, and then the change button.


Hit the Add/Remove button, then on the next screen make sure to click on the very top option and "Run All on My Computer"


Once the install process has finished, viola! You will have a now working installation of Office Outlook 2007!

Thanks to the TechNet Forums , specifically Beverly's post on page 1, and Harry's on page 2 that helped me to work through this one.

App: Office 2007 Enterprise

OS: Windows XP SP2 English.

Happy Office 2007 installing!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.

SBS - Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration

When there is a need to have folders in the general company share hidden from users with no permission to access them, we use Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration.


This tool installs onto the server, and uses the Security ACL permissions to determine who is allowed to see the folder listed in their Windows Explorer or command line directory listing.


When installing the tool, one has the choice to enable enumeration on all shares, or choose to enable it on individual shares later on. I always choose the manual option.


Once installed, you will find a new tab in your folder properties window.




Once clicked on, you are presented with the option to enable enumeration on the folder.

Once enabled, only those users that have permission to access the folder will see it in their Explorer. This goes for folders listed in the Network Neigbourhood/My Network Places listings on the server.

The documentation can be found here on Microsoft's site.

The actual download can be found here. Note the different downloads for different processor architectures.

Happy SBSing!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

SBS 2K3 R2 Premium - SQL 2005 Error 107 - Report Server Windows

This message was appearing in the application log every minute. This is a fresh SBS 2K3 R2 Premium installation:

It only took one search with the full text of the error to come up with the solution to the problem.

I needed to rework the encryption setup in the SQL Reporting Services Configuration:

Connect to the default instance:

Then, backup, delete, and backup again.

Once I did that process, the error was gone.

We have a few SBS 2K3 R2 Premium installs out there with the number growing.

It is a whole new challenge to get to know SQL 2005! :D

The first source: IPDG3.COM

Which lead to an article on MSDN.

Happy SBSing,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.

SBS 2K3 R2 Premium - Upgrading WSS MSDE to SQL 2005

I have pretty much upgraded the default MSDE db instance for Windows SharePoint Services to a full SQL database since I can remember.

On SBS 2K3 RTM and SP1 this was a relatively straight forward upgrade to SQL 2000.

ON SBS 2K3 R2 Premium though, it is not so straight forward to upgrade the instance to a SQL 2005 instance.

There are a number of extra steps that one will need to complete in order to upgrade the database instance.

SmallBizServer.net has the low down on how to accomplish this task. The instructions are chock full of screen shots, so it is very easy to follow.

Microsoft also has its own article on the various types of database instances WSS can run and the upgrade processes for each here. This article also specifies the proper method for the Default install of SQL 2005 Workgroup Edition.

Watch yourself though, any mistakes and it could mean a re-install or recovery!

Happy SBSing,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

UPS - Class Action Lawsuit - Failed Customs Brokerage Consent

Principle.

That is the reason that we will never use UPS to ship and when purchasing product if we have the option to choose the shipper it won't be UPS.

Why?

Two very important server shipments that we received were crushed. It was a fight to work with their insurance to at least get some compensation for the loss. Thus, two very important commitments I made with clients were broken, and we had a loss of trust in UPS' abilities to serve our shipping needs.

On a number of occasions, we received packages from the U.S. via UPS with no packing information. Having signed for them, I did not think anything of it.

Until the UPS Brokerage invoices arrived in the mail later. In one case, the products were worth $40US, the invoice for the brokerage fees etc. was more.

I did not authorize UPS to broker the import of one of those packages, and I refused reception of the other due to the exorbitant brokerage fees.

The shipment that was refused showed up two weeks later, again with no paperwork, so I assumed that they waived the fees.

WRONG.

I received an invoice from them for the fees a couple weeks later.

It took a lot of wrangling with the UPS people on the phone to get them to accept that I did not approve of UPS brokering the packages for us. Eventually they did accept that and agreed to void the invoices.

They indicated to me that when the fees are lower than $50 they cannot go after the shipper for them so they chase after us, the receiver. So, when the fees are over $50, do shippers realize that they should find out from the receiver why those fees are coming back at them? Or do they just pay? Something stinky here...follow the bouncing ball and you will figure it out...

Then I received a collection letter for one of the invoices a number of months later.

Again, I was on the phone with them to get the situation resolved. It eventually did, with my explicit instructions that I receive a letter indicating the charges were waived.

Never initiate communications with a Collection Agency. Believe me...

I would never invoice any of my own clients or prospective clients without having obtained their prior consent for the product or service. Thus, another reason for not dealing with UPS.

I now see that my experiences are not all that uncommon, and that a class action lawsuit has been initiated.

You can find out more information here. It has been filed at the provincial level, but the fact that there is an e-mail address for people to get in touch with them from other provinces, shows that more suits may be forthcoming - my opinion of course!

Happy to not ship with UPS!

Philip E.
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

System Builder Tip: Save those Hot Swap Carrier Trays

Whenever we build our Intel Servers with hot swap capabilities, we save the hot swap drive carrier trays.


They stack very neatly, and provide a convenient place to store screws and such that we are removing from a system we are building, or a client's system that we are working on.

This way, we can keep track of absolutely everything that came out of a system, and not worry if we are missing anything, or missed something in the assembly or reassembly of a system.

Happy System Building,

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.

Virtual Vista Windows Experience Index

We are testing out Vista in a virtualized environment. The following is the message one will receive if the Assessment is run when connected by TS into the virtual machine:

It won't run. Period.

Vista Business RTM (TechNet) is the version of the operating system installed.

Here is the message one will receive when connected via the Virtual Server Web Console:

There isn't a whole lot out there about this, but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that Vista is running on virtualized hardware.

Not a big deal, just an interesting quirk.

Happy Vista Virtualizing!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Vista Aero Performance Rating - ATI X1300 & X850

I realize that there are a number of variables for hardware performance.

However, here is my experience with a couple of different systems and their graphics performance as rated by the Windows Vista video hardware assessment for Graphics (Desktop performance for Windows Aero) and Gaming Graphics (3D business and gaming graphics performance):

• P4 650 3.4 GHz. HT
• Intel D925XCEV
• 4 GB RAM
• 320 GB Seagate SATA 300 (2) RAID 1
• ATI X850 Pro PCI-E

The above system's Windows Vista 32bit Video score for Graphics and Gaming Graphics: 4.8

• Intel E6400 2.13 GHz.
• Intel DQ965GF
• 2 GB RAM
• 320 GB Seagate SATA 300 (2) RAID 1
• ATI X1300 Pro PCI-E

The above system's Windows Vista 32bit Video initial score for Graphics and Gaming Graphics: 3.0

For the second system, I went and downloaded and installed ATI's latest drivers for Vista 32bit. I re-ran the assessment and the score ended up lower! The score with the ATI drivers was: 2.8

I rolled back the video driver and re-ran the assessment again. The proper Microsoft WDDM driver was there as it was before I installed the ATI driver.

The damage was done, the score came out at 2.8 again. I wasn't about to go in and clean everything out to bump the score up a whole two tenths.

Our E6400 system client was happy with the overall performance increase they experienced with this particular upgrade. They were originally running a P4 2.8 GHz. with on board video. We upgraded their hardware to the above E6400 configuration, their OS to Windows Vista Business, and their Office to 2007.

The P4 650 is my home based system.

For system builders, video performance on Vista may be an important consideration, and perhaps should become one of the key questions that the client gets asked when planning a hardware upgrade, whether partial or a whole new box, in preparation for Vista.

This example also goes to show that a much more powerful CPU will not make up for a slower performing video card when it comes to Windows Aero and 3D performance!

Happy system building!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Office 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts for Office 2003 Users

While in Excel, I got this message as I went about my usual keyboard shortcut to do something. This little gem popped up to let me know that I can continue with the way I would have done it, or cancel out:

That's a nice touch for us keyboard shortcut users.

Here's another screen shot of what happens when you hit the ALT key:



The ALT+Letter combination possibilities come up. This gives one the chance to get familiar with the new ways of keyboarding around the interface.

So, after hitting the ALT first, then the H to bring up the next set of keyboard strokes within the Home tab, we come up with the following:

There are certainly a greater number of steps to achieve the same tasks as before, however, there are now a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts for commands that one would have had to manually create in Office 2003.

And, for ALT+F we find our old File menu under the Office Symbol:

We have the traditional key strokes, and then a few new ones for some new sub menus.

The blue lines represent previously opened files in Excel, Word, etc. I do like the fact that we are no longer restricted to 9 previously opened files.

The learning curve involved with the new key strokes is not too steep. It will not be too difficult to pick up for those of us who use our keyboards more so than our mouse to get around a program's interface.

Happy Keyboarding!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.