AskSHANK.com - Finding solutions to your IT problems

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Automatically Download Pictures

Shankaran — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:40:19 +0000

By default, Microsoft Outlook does not allow pictures in emails to automatically download. To enable pictures to automatically display, do the following in Outlook.

1) Tools Menu.

2) Select Trust Center.

3) Left hand pane select automatic download.

4) Uncheck Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items.

5) Click Ok.

Backup firefox bookmarks

Shankaran — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:13:03 +0000

So you’re upgrading your computer, and you want to backup your Firefox backups. That, or you just want to back them up because you’ve had them for 4 years on the same computer and if you lose it, you lose all 4 years of your online life.

Backing up, and restoring, is EASY.

To this within firefox

1) Goto bookmarks toolbar.

2) Select organize bookmarks.

3) Click on import and backup.

4) Select Backup.

5) Choose a location and a file name.

6) Click OK

You will be ALL set.

You can also backup the contents of your bookmarks by navigating to your Firefox folder in windows explorer and manually back them up.

In Windows XP this will be located here
c:\documents and settings\USER NAME\application data\Mozilla\Profiles

In Windows 7 and Vista
C:\Users\USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Note, you will need to be able to view hidden files and folders

Windows program crashes as soon as you run it

Shankaran — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:52:23 +0000

There have been times where you will install a program, and it will work for days, weeks, without problems. The one day when you need to get into it, you get a pop up that says “A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.”

But how many times were you notified ever about a solution? And why would the application just stop working? You even tried reinstalling it, but NOT a single piece of luck in getting it to run again. The only thing you can think of changing is windows updates. And believe me, being in a corporate environment, I’ve seen windows updates break MANY pieces of applications, including the machine itself.

Here’s one thing you can try. Just recently I was running Crystal Reports XI on Windows Server 2008. Out of no where the application failed to start when I ran it. A little research and I found out that it was Microsoft Data Execution Prevention (DEP) that was crashing my application. What is it? It’s a security feature that was released in Windows XP SP2, preventing certain exploits.

Here’s an old excerpt from Microsoft.

“Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a set of hardware and software technologies that perform additional checks on memory to help prevent malicious code from running on a system. In Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, DEP is enforced by hardware and by software.

The primary benefit of DEP is to help prevent code execution from data pages. Typically, code is not executed from the default heap and the stack. Hardware-enforced DEP detects code that is running from these locations and raises an exception when execution occurs. Software-enforced DEP can help prevent malicious code from taking advantage of exception-handling mechanisms in Windows.”

Yes that is an old doc, but there is more detailed information on Wikipedia. This feature is in Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008.

So how do you turn this off for a particular program?
1. Click start.

2. Click control panel.

3. Click system.

4. Click the advanced tab

5. Click settings in the performance section

6. Click the data execute tab.

7. Select turn on DEP for all programs and services except for those I select.

8. Click add.

9. Enter your application

10. Click ok.

And you should be set.

How to remove Spyware

Shankaran — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:26:28 +0000

There are dozens of ways your machines can get infected by spyware, bogging down your machine tremendously. There are even ones that will hijack your browser, prevent you from going to certain sites such as anti-spyware sites, or redirect any links you click to a particular page. The trickiest ones to new users are those fake pop ups that state your machine is infected and can only be removed by purchasing “AWESOME ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE” or enter a name there.

So what do you do when you get infected? Here are a few tools that I’ve used in the past to get rid of the junk. And many times I had to use a few together.

1. Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware – There is a free version and also a full version for $25.95. This is a great tool. This by far has pretty much gotten rid of all my problems.

2. Ad-Aware – This product has been out on the market for quite some time. They have a free version which does only Malware removal, and then a few other versions you can purchase which include features such as anti-virus and support.

3. Spy Bot- Search and Destroy – This product is totally free.

4. Trend Housecall Online – This is a free online based anti-virus and anti-malware product from Trend Micro. It does a pretty good job, especially if you want to tackle viruses too.

All in all, I typically use the first product, and then try the second or third if necessary.

Trend Micro Officescan will not start in safe mode

How to view hidden files in Windows XP 7 Vista 2003

Shankaran — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:04:41 +0000

By default Microsoft Windows hides many of its critical files from the user. One particular folder includes the user’s application data. There are times when you need to access these folders to access particular files or make backups.

WINDOWS XP & WINDOWS 2003

1. Goto my computer.

2. Select the Tools menu and click Folder Options.

3. Select the view tab.

4. Check the checkbox labeled Display the contents of system folders.

5. Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders.

6. Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide file extensions for known file types.

7. Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.

8. Click OK

WINDOWS VISTA & 7

1. Click on the start menu.

2. Click on the Control Panel

3. If you see folder options, click that and then the view tab. Otherwise click the appearance and personalization then show hidden files and folders.

4. On the window you should see a selection for show hidden files and folders, click that.

5. Uncheck the checkbox labeled Hide extensions for known file types.

6. Uncheck the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.

7. Click OK.

Backup your Outlook autocomplete file for email addresses

Shankaran — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:59:56 +0000

The Outlook autocomplete file is that the file the holds the addresses that appear when you start typing away an email address in the To: field. Many times you may compose an email address that is not part of your address book. So this is what that autocomplete file populates- the list of all those email addresses. The problem is, if you’re reinstalling your operating system or migrating to another machine, you want to ensure you copy this file.

Here is how you can save this data.

WINDOWS XP USERS & OUTLOOK 2003\2007

1) Close out of outlook

2) Navigate to c:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

3) You need to be able to view hidden files and folders, which you can learn how to do below.

4) The file you are looking for is a .nk2 file, probably your outlook profile name.nk2, outlook.nk2 or default.nk2.

5) Go ahead and copy this file, and then copy it to the same location when you are ready.

6) Start outlook on the new machine and you should have your addresses.

NOTE, I have not tested this, but I’ve read that the .nk2 file must match the name of the Outlook profile name. So when you copy over the file and realize the addresses aren’t appearing, then you may need to change the name of the file.

WINDOWS VISTA\7 USERS & OUTLOOK 2003\2007

1) Close out of outlook

2) Navigate to C:\Users\user name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

3) You need to be able to view hidden files and folders, which you can learn how to do below.

4) The file you are looking for is a .nk2 file, probably your outlook profile name.nk2, outlook.nk2 or default.nk2.

5) Go ahead and copy this file, and then copy it to the same location when you are ready.

6) Start outlook on the new machine and you should have your addresses.

HOW TO VIEW HIDDEN FILES IN WINDOWS

How to launch Outlook with a different account

Shankaran — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:55:33 +0000

We all know Microsoft Outlook only allows a single Microsoft Exchange account per windows profile. Of course, you can add additional mailboxes to an account, but that requires additional work and then you have to manually open the calendar. You can also open a mailbox through your existing running Outlook, IF, and only IF your user has permissions to access that mailbox. There may be reasons on why you would like to run outlook with another exchange account for reasons such as; setting up a moderated account, helping a user archive or even migrate mail from another source. Maybe you are a system administrator and need to do some snooping.

This method I am going to show you allows you to open another user’s Exchange account in Outlook without the need for having permissions or actually setting up the Outlook profile, but there are requirements.
1) You must already have an Exchange Outlook profile created on the machine you are using to open the other account.
2) You must have the login credentials of the Exchange account you would like to open.

For Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 on Windows XP,

1) Hold the shift key and right click your Outlook shortcut on the desktop.
2) Select Run As from the pop up menu.
3) In the next pop up window you can enter the credentials for the Exchange account you would like to open.

Easy To Use Free Open Source FTP Client

Shankaran — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:27:28 +0000

There are TONS of FTP clients you can choose to use. In the late 90’s almost everyone had a copy of CuteFTP. There are still alot of popular ones out there, both commercial and free. I’m not the one to dish out $40 for a copy of something I can get for free, so I stuck with open source.

The one I use now is FileZilla, which you can download here. It’s pretty straight forward to use. Has your queue manager and site manager. I can’t think of a single complaint with this tool. And, if you’re interested, they also have a server solution.

Great Free Open Source Monitoring

Shankaran — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:15:48 +0000

Here are some GREAT tools to monitor your enterprise network. You probably have heard about many of these, but there are a few that may be new to you. I’ll have a write up with detailed review later on.

Service / Devices

Nagios – http://www.nagios.com
HyperIC – http://www.hyperic.com
GroundWork – http://www.groundworkopensource.com/
Zabbix – http://www.zabbix.com/
NetXMS – http://www.netxms.org/
Spiceworks – http://www.spiceworks.com
Network monitoring

Ntop – http://www.ntop.org
Cacti – http://www.cacti.net/
Snort – http://www.snort.org

Windows XP remove items from startup

Shankaran — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:47:40 +0000

You probably noticed when you start up your machine, you get a bunch of programs that start that slow down your system. This could be like AIM, Real Audio, Quicktime, Windows media player, etc. You can prevent these from starting up by following these simple steps.

1) Click Start
2) Click run
3) Type in MSCONFIG and hit enter
4) On the System Configuration Utility, hit the Startup Tab
5) Now here you will see alot of startup items. Many of these things will be necessary so don’t just think you can stop everything. Items that are checked mean their are currently starting up. If you look at the columns, expand the command column. Here you can see what file gets launched, and by looking at the directory it will be some what easy to tell which application is which.