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About 2 weeks ago, I noticed that my Windows application shortcut icons were showing the default, “no type associated” icons for all of the Office-related documents. I could double-click one of these (such as a .pptx or .xls file) and it would open in the correct application, so the shortcut itself was working.. but the icons were the generic Windows icon:

I found a very detailed page describing various ways to try to fix the issue, and I tried all of them. None of these worked.

What did work, however, was completely quirky and inexplicable. I had to replace a directory under C:\Windows\Installer called:

{90120000-0012-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}

Here’s how I stumbled upon this. I tried to change the default icon for Excel files by doing the following:

1. I opened an Explorer window (explorer.exe)
2. I clicked on Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types
3. I scrolled down to XLS in the list and clicked on “Advanced”. I saw the following dialog:
4. I clicked on “Change Icon”, and the following error message came up:

So the icon shortcuts were missing, because this weird directory was missing (probably some disk-cleaning tool I ran purged that directory to regain some space).

I found that directory on one of my other Windows laptops, copied it over, and now the Office document shortcut icons are working again.

NetSetMan is a network settings manager which can easily switch between 6 different, visually structured profiles including:

MAC-Address is the hardware Network Address for the NIC which is unique for the system. However, there may be time when you need to change the MAC-Address for administrative purpose on a network. Some of the device drivers come with an option to change it from the device properties but not all (like my Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Driver). For those who do not have the luxury of changing the MAC-Address from the device properties there is a way to do this  by editing the Windows Registry.

To change MAC-Address for a Network card in Windows Registry:

1. Click Start – Run, type “regedit”

2. Navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Class
\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Under this key, you shoud see numbers in sequence as “0000?, “0001? and so on. Click on one at a time to check the description of the device to match it with that of your Network Card. In my case (0001)

4. Once found, in the right-pane, look for “NetworkAddress” key value. If you find it, right-click and select modify. Enter the desired MAC-Address as a 12 digit number (all in one, no “space” “.” or “-”)

5. If you don’t find the key, right-click in the rightpane, select “New” – “String Value”. Enter the name as “NetworkAddress”. Now modify and set the desired value.

6. Now, disable and enable the Network card from the ControlPanel – Network Connections.

This should reflect the new MAC-Address on your NIC. Should you choose to go back to the original manufacturer set MAC-Address simply delete the key you just created/modified in the Windows Registry.

You can also use a tool like Technitium MAC Address Changer to change the MAC-Address of your NIC

Things you will need:

•Your domain name.
•Your Email address.
•Your email password.

Configuring your email client: Outlook 2007

1.Open Outlook 2007.
2.Click the Tools menu, and select Account Settings.

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One of the interesting problem I encountered while setting up a new computer for a end user was printing PDF file. Here is how it went down and how I fixed it:

Windows XP Professional SP3

1.The end user first said that he wasn’t able to print anything at all.
2.At first the print spooler service was down. I restarted the print spooler service and it crash again.
3.Taking a look at the event viewer under system, found an interesting error “Faulting application spoolsv.exe, version 5.1.2600.5512, faulting module ZSR.DLL, version 6.20.1625.0, fault address 0×0001f979?
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La instalarea sistemului de operare Windows XP, se creaza un user pe care puteti sa-l numiti dvs. dupa bunul plac. Acest user (ex: stealth) va avea privilegii de user Administrator, si va permite sa instalati programe, sa modificati setarile esentiale ale OS XP-ului si sa creati noi useri pe sistemul de operare.

Desi acest user are privilegii totale pe sistem, Windows XP creaza si user-ul Administrator. User care este invizibil in User Accounts, Computer Management si Logon Screen.

Cum activam / facem vizibil userul Administrator pe Windows XP.

1. Mergem in Start -> Run -> tastam “regedit” pentru a deschide editorul de registrii. (Registry Editor).
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No doubt TeamViewer is one of the best, free remote access and remote desktop sharing software over internet.

Let’s say your friend is facing some computer issues and she does not know much about computers. It’ll be really difficult for you to guide your friend over phone as mostly she’d not understand what to do and your phone bill would run high as well !for

This is where TeamViewer comes in picture and works best. You can sit at the comfort of your house and help your friend who can possibly be sitting thousands of miles away (Make sure you have direct internet connection as TeamViewer does not work if it’s behind proxy).

TeamViewer is free for personal use, but you’ll have to buy a license if you are using it for commercial purposes. Off late I had a few readers e-mailing a common problem they had with TeamViewer. The common problem was that, even though these visitors were not using TeamViewer for commercial purpose they were getting the following message:

“Commercial Use Suspected”

In such case, my first suggestion is that you contact TeamViewer team and inform them about the problem and see if they can solve the issue.

However, there is a way to solve this, but this should be used only if you don’t get a reply from teamviewer and is a bit of technical process, so you have to dabble your hand in it only if you know what you are upto.

1> First Close Teamviewer, if it is running.

2> Click on Start –> Run –> type %appdata% –> delete TeamViewer folder

3> Delete registry folder: hkcu/software/teamviewer and hklm/software/teamviewer

4> Change the MAC Address of your LAN card, this tutorial can help you.

5> Restart your Teamviewer and you should get a new ID and also should solve the “Commercial Use Suspected” problem.

Please use the following method only if you have genuine problem. Please play fair as TeamViewer is one of the best freely available software, which I use and recommend strongly over others in the same niche. There is no substitute to TeamViewer.

Those from Windows background know the ease of accessing remote FTP hosts as local file system but do you know how easily it could be done even in Linu! If not, read on. We’ll be using a small command line tool called CurlFtpFS to mount remote FTP hosts, as Linux does not natively supports FTP file systems.

When you create a signature (to be added to all your outgoing emails automatically) in Yahoo! Mail, you can make liberal use of all the fancy text formatting tools available via the Color and Graphics editor (provided you use Internet Explorer on Windows).
You cannot, however, add images to your Yahoo! Mail signature through this route. A little manual editing of the HTML involved or some copying and pasting do the trick, however, if the image you want to insert in your signature is available from a publicly accessible web server.
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If you’ve ever run the Windows XP’s Disk Cleanup utility, you probably discovered that your temporary files occupy a significant amount of space. You might select the Temporary Files check box in order to allow the Disk Cleanup utility to delete the files in the Temp folder, but the Disk Cleanup utility will not remove all of the files. The reason for this oddity is that the configuration for the Disk Cleanup utility does not allow deletion of files accessed in the last seven days.
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