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Import PDF in OpenOffice
edited by on March 7th 2011, at 11:36

One of the neat things about OpenOffice is the many extensions available. Oracle has a PDF import extension for OpenOffice Draw, which can import just about any unsecured PDF document.

Download link: http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport?intcmp=1549

This allows you to open PDF documents directly from the menu. There are still a few quirks now and then, but they don't spoil the usefulness of the extension.

 
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
edited by on February 23rd 2011, at 13:25

Windows 7 and Windows 2008R2 Service Pack 1 has been released.

It is available through Windows Update, but for those that require the full installer, can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3202ce6-4056-4059-8a1b-3a9b77cdfdda&displaylang=en.

 
Missing toolbar in Acrobat Reader X when viewing in browser
edited by on February 16th 2011, at 16:52

Since Acrobat Reader X, by default, no toolbar is shown while in Read Mode display. Instead, a heads-up black toolbar with minimalistic functions is used. This is the default behaviour but can be turned off.

To do that, open Reader, choose Edit, then Preferences. In the tab Internet, uncheck Display in Read Mode by default, then press OK.

 
7-Zip mirror
edited by on February 14th 2011, at 13:28

Because the official website of 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) is currently offline, I'm mirroring the latest version here.

EDIT: the official site has been fixed and is online again.

 
The A-Z index of Windows CMD commands
edited by on February 14th 2011, at 13:27
 
Darik's Boot And Nuke
edited by on December 16th 2010, at 15:57

For an easy to use disk erasing tool: http://www.dban.org/.

It's pretty important when you retire your old computer that you securely delete the contents of your hard disk. Even with a regular format, it is still possible to retrieve a lot of data from the disk. DBAN can help you with that.

 
No Access ODBC on 64-bit Windows
edited by on December 16th 2010, at 15:55

By default, there's no ODBC driver available on 64-bit Windows systems for Access and Foxpro. This is because they only are native 32-bit at the moment. There are a few workarounds present, but the easiest would be to stick with 32-bit if you need this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957570

 
Problems with Firefox plugin of Foxit Reader 4.2
edited by on October 11th 2010, at 15:53

At work, several computers were in the process of being reinstalled. All those computers suffered from a problem where Foxit Reader plugin would not correctly work in Firefox.
While we haven't managed to really fix the issue, we resolved it by uninstalling the latest version 4.2, and installed version 4.1.1 instead. Once installed, we then upgraded to the latest version using the update functionality inside Foxit.

 
Unable to disable Java Update
edited by on October 8th 2010, at 11:16
There is a problem with disabling Java Update when you're running Vista/2008/7 with UAC enabled. Trying to disable automatic updates through the control panel does not work as the setting will not "stick"

The problem is caused by an oversight of Sun. Running the configuration applet from Control Panel means it gets started as a unprivileged user, and the automatic update setting cannot be changed by such a user.

Rather than simply kick out jusched.exe from the registry (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run, there's another way. Open an Explorer and manually find the control panel file (called javacpl.exe); default is this: C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe. Right-c  ...
 
Configure Automatic Updates in a Non–Active Directory Environment
edited by on September 24th 2010, at 13:12

Some information about configuring WSUS without AD (and thus, without group policies):

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc708449%28WS.10%29.aspx

 
Slow XP boot after installation of .NET v4
edited by on September 21st 2010, at 15:35
With the push of .NET Framework v4 through Windows Update, I've noticed a problem with Windows XP clients. They all suddenly started to boot up slowly, i.e. it takes an abnormal long time before the network stack is started.

Logical deduction and analysis of the problem lead me to check which services were taking a long time to start, as this could be an indication of cause. After rebooting, then immediately digging into Services (services.msc) shows a service trying to start, called Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X86.
As the users of the affected computers are not using any .NET 4 applications, and having no clue what the service does, I tried disabling it. To my honest surprise,  ...
 
Outlook 2007 constantly asking for password
edited by on September 20th 2010, at 16:51

If Outlook 2007 is constantly asking to enter your password, even though you've enabled Remember password, try the following:

  1. Close Outlook.
  2. Navigate to: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Protect (Vista/7), or %userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Protect (XP).
  3. In that folder should be another folder named after a SID. Rename or delete the folder.
  4. Some people have reported a reboot is required before starting Outlook again. To be on the safe side, do this. After the reboot, start Outlook again. It should be fixed.
 
Microsoft announces Internet Explorer 9 beta
edited by on September 16th 2010, at 11:14

Microsoft has announced the release of the beta-version of the new Internet Explorer 9.

One of the highlights would be a better compliance with industry standards (HTML5, CSS3, etc.). Does this mean that the horrid problem of browser incompatibility (especially between IE and all other browsers) will finally be resolved? I sure hope so...

 
Installing Exchange 2007 SP2 on SBS 2008
edited by on September 15th 2010, at 11:31
Installing Exchange 2007 Service pack 2 on a Windows 2008 SBS generates an error, as detailed here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973862.

To resolve, you can either follow the instructions outlined in the KB, or you can download the installation tool, especially designed for SBS 2008.

First, download these: Exchange 2007 SP2 (64-bit edition):
- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=4C4BD2A3-5E50-42B0-8BBB-2CC9AFE3216A

Exchange 2007 SP2 installation tool for SBS 2008:
- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=FFD2FE61-9278-489E-9B96-3816394C9CB6



Run the first file to extract its contents to a folder of your c  ...
 
Shrink database of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11
edited by on September 15th 2010, at 10:24
Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 (short: SEP11) has a database in which it stocks everything from client properties, virus definitions and more. At the installation, you could either select to use an external data source, or its internal database format. When the database is in service for a while, it can grow very large, depending on the number of clients you've got. But it is possible to shrink (= compact) it, which, in certain cases, could save you several hundreds of MB.

Notice
The problem of a overly large database was addressed in Maintenance Release 2, where the compact operation is done automatically. If you're not running MR2, you will have to perform the steps below, but if you hav  ...
 
Getting rid of unused/disconnected devices in Windows
edited by on September 14th 2010, at 11:56
Ever so often, when a hardware device fails or gets replaced by another, the old one still slumbers in the deep abyss that is Windows. Usually, this is not really a problem as the unused device only takes up disk space in the form of drivers and/or support software.
In case of network equipment, that's another story. Setting a static IP on a network adapter, replacing it with another, then setting the same static address on the replacement invokes a confusing warning message. In case of 2008 SBS, it gets even worse as running certain wizards will barf out errors about not being the primary adapter, not having a static address, and so on.

Getting rid of those pesky ghost devices is not easy:  ...
 
Retrieve Microsoft product keys from your system
edited by on September 13th 2010, at 10:13
It all happened to us at least once: losing a Microsoft product key, either by carelesness, the cleaning corporation, or a sudden fireball in your drawer. It's not so much a problem if your system is still operational, but what to do when you have to reinstall your computer? One can't just buy expensive licenses all over again, now can we?

Fortunately, there are tools out there that allow the retrieval of product keys, as long as they are installed. ProduKey, created by Nirsoft is one such program. It quickly retrieves product keys from a working system for Windows, Office, SQL server and other Microsoft products.

Direct download link: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/produkey.zip.
  ...
 
Beware of Google Chrome (on old computers)
edited by on September 6th 2010, at 09:19

Be careful of installing Google Chrome on a Windows XP computer with an Intel 915i graphics card on board. I ran into an odd problem at a client, who had recently installed it. Occassionally, the system would bail out with a BSOD, and a vague error code. At first, I suspected a hardware problem, but letting WinDbg loose on the minidump file revealed the true culprit.

Apparently, there's a conflict between the graphics driver of the Intel 915 and Chrome, causing the BSOD. A detailed analysis in WinDbg revealed the causing program as chrome.exe. See the attached text file for a full log of the problem.

The client stopped using Chrome, and his odd BSODs went away.

 
Make Cygwin's 'dig' work without errors
edited by on September 2nd 2010, at 13:41
In a default Cygwin installation, dig does not work properly out of the box. While resolving works when specifying a DNS server on the command line, a simple dig does not seem to work, and results in an error:

C:\cygwin\etc>dig www.google.be;; communications error: connection reset;; communications error: connection reset

The reason for this is because there are no DNS servers specified in Cygwin. Dig uses the same configuration as DNS would be on a linux system, the configuration file /etc/resolv.conf. By creating this file and adding your DNS servers (e.g. from Windows), dig will be able to resolve without each time manually specifying a DNS server.

Assuming you have installed Cyg  ...
 
Batch processing with The GIMP
edited by on August 26th 2010, at 12:53
While batch processing was already possible using the rather complex Script-Fu, there's now a plug-in for GIMP allowing simple batch processing through a dialog.

DBP David's Batch Processor allows for automatic operations on a collection of image files. Operations such as colour correcting, resizing, cropping, sharpening, and even renaming can be performed with ease, saving them to a different location in a different image format. All operations (except loading and saving) are optional so you can use this for simple image format conversion as well.

DBP can be found here: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hodsond/dbp.html.
It is mainly designed for linux version of The GIMP but pre  ...
 
showing posts tagged with 'windows'
 
 
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