I was printing to a remote printer over a VPN from a Win 7 Workstation.  The printer was a HP LaserJet Professional, but I’m not sure that makes any difference…

Anyway, the print job would go the queue on the computer, and you could see sitting there spooling, and then it would flash, and spool it again… over and over… until the paper ran out (which of course you had no clue because the printer is half way around the world, right?)

So here’s my tribute to Al Gore – if you want to save trees by only printing ONE instead of ONE paper ream, go to your printer properties, and uncheck “Enable bidirectional support” on the “Ports” tab.

So make sure you check this Microsoft KB article just in case:  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290684&Product=ol2002

The ultimate fix for me was this:  Open your registry and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.

It should look something like this picture:

User shell folders

That’s what it SHOULD look like.  The one on the problem machine only had one of those.  Here’s a registry file that will add them all back in for you – on XP machines:  User Shell Folders downloads.

From my Vipre Enterprise alerts this morning:

UPS Invoice

Just a friendly reminder…  You don’t even have anything being shipped by UPS… Why would they send you an invoice?

Long story short, UPS does not send their invoices via an executable that is attached to an email inside a ZIP file!

Don’t forget it.

http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/07/21/how-to-get-rid-of-the-installer-configuration-dialog-when-running-office-2007-and-office-2003-on-the-same-system-for-vista-and-other-versions-of-windows.aspx

Ever heard of facebook? 60% of business say that it is their largest security risk (out of the popular social networking sites).

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/02/01/revealed-social-networks-pose-biggest-risk/

So I had a client that couldn’t open email hyperlinks. Whenever you clicked on a email link in Outlook, it would popup a dialogue box and ask what program you wanted to open it with.

The fix… In this case, the registry permissions on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto were messed up. I did a right click, and properties and gave everyone full control on the key, and also made the administrators group the owner. I did that on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto\shell & HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto\shell\open as well.

Here is a registry file you can use to recreate the entries if you need to.

Happy emailing!

–Luke

Well…. Since that isn’t a good way to start off the weekend, let me tell you how to fix it!

This will work depending on what exactly the root issue is.

1) Boot to the Windows Recovery Console (boot from the CD and hit “R” for repair)
2) type the command bootcfg /rebuild
3) Confirm that it detects your Operating System
4) Type “XP” or something for a OS description
5) Type “/fastdetect” (without quotes) for the startup parameters.
6) Type “Exit” and reboot the computer.

Cross your fingers and hope it works!

–Luke