The Windows 7 Beta launch yesterday had its share of problems and the Windows 7 team took notice. They have extended the beta download time and increased the number of keys beyond the 2.5 million initially slated for download.
I tried for most of Friday to get my keys but was unable to get past the green circle of death. Today the process was painless and carefree.
I haven’t had the time to install it yet, but look forward to doing so and seeing if the hype meets expectations.
A user reported an issue with her printer this afternoon. Whenever she tried to print it locked up her PC. I tried all my usual tricks to hack out the offending job, but nothing I tried was working. The print spooler would crash seconds after starting. This error kept taunting me:
“Spoolsv.exe – Application Error”
“The instruction at “0x77fcc2c0″ referenced memory at “0×00000000″.
“The memory could not be written.”
I popped out my trusty Troubleshooting Swiss Army Knife (read: Google) and quickly had another tool to fight the tenacious spooler.
It turns out the most common cause of the error is an abundance of .SHD and .SPL files in the spool directory. These files are created by the spooler to save the spooled data of a print job. The .SPL file comprises drawing commands and the .SHD file comprises job settings information of the print job.
To fix spoolsv.exe application error, you will have to remove these files from the system. To do this, perform the following steps on your Windows XP computer:
Just like that the users printer problems disappeared.
While poking around Word 2007 today I realized that I could be posting from Word instead of the WYSIWYG/html WordPress editor. What you see here is the 1st post from Word to WordPress on my site.
Setting up the connection info is a snap. You just have to enter in the URL of your site, the info of the user you want to post as and you are on your way.
I’m not sure if I will continue using Word 2007 to post as some of the advanced options for images and post layout are a bit finicky, but it is a great way for average users to use an application they are comfortable with to post to their blogs.
It has been 9 months since Vista has been released into the wild. Nearly a year ago, and before general release, I posted a comment on Vista. I had used it for about 2 weeks at work to test the various applications I run. At the time I thought it was the prettiest bloated cow I'd ever seen. I made the decision not to migrate our XP/2000 fleet any time soon. I didn't install XP at work until after SP2 was released. I think I will be waiting at least until SP2 for Vista as well. In fact, if M$ decides to support XP long term I may never migrate.
In related news, Jim Louderback is leaving PCMag for Revision3 and has some parting shots at Vista. Jim was a proud supporter of Vista since the launch, but after using it extensively he has changed his tune.
Thank you both for giving me a few more gray hair this morning. Ive spent the past 3 weeks preparing for the DST change in North America , reading endless knowledgbase articles, patching all my systems and thinking that everything was going to be alright. Wrong. I came in this morning to an email from an external partner saying the MS approved TZEdit program does not work. So all my Windows 2000 servers and workstations will need to be updated, again.
To get Windows 2000 to recognize the changes you make in TZEdit you have to change the timezone you are in to a different one, i.e. from Central to Eastern, apply the change and then change it back again. After doing this you will see the correct time on the clock.
For those of you running XP or Windows 2003 you can apply a registry edit that will fix the problem for you. I've created the file for you here. Save the file to your desktop, then run it accepting all prompts.
With the impending releases of Internet Explorer 7, I would like to remind my readers that there is another option. In fact there are two other options that would be a good choice as a primary browser, Firefox and Opera . Personally I prefer Firefox to Opera, the bias is purely subjective. I just like how Firefox does things and I like the the user interface. There is nothing wrong with Opera, its just not for me. With that being said, Firefox is set to release its latest version late this month. You don't have to wait for 2.0 to come out, the latest stable release 1.5.07 is available and I urge you to at least give it a spin. Check out TweakGuides.com to learn how to optimize you new copy of Firefox.
In related IE7 news, Microsoft will be pushing IE7 via Windows Update as a high priority update, but will be an optional update. There have already been a few concerns over possible exploits, but one thing is for sure, this update will be worth the time to download it. Until website developers stop designing sites to use activeX there will always be a need to keep a IE around. It may as well be a more secure version than the porous IE6.
Today I am writing to you from my test install of Microsoft Windows Vista RC1 Build 5600 and Windows Live Writer Beta. I have been using Vista for about a week and so far so good. The Aero Glass interface is quite beautiful and I do like some of the security enhancements that have been made, but others have written about Vista so I will leave the critique to them.
Do you ever get tired of installing the department printer for each user of a PC? Has your attempts to educate your users ended in frustration? Well thanks to a neat little tool built right into Windows, your troubles are over. View full article »
For anyone who uses Microsoft's Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and needs to force a client to check for updates, you can run the following command and the client will check with your WSUS server. View full article »
