Configuring Office365 on difficult XP computer

This entry will have no value to anyone else.  It's a specific situation for my own notes.  On the computer named Vostro1500-INTE, the Outlook 2010 has consistent trouble with configuring the Office365 account.

I tried all these things.

• Create new mail profile
• Setting the login/email address to username@domain.onmicrosoft.com
• Set DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 instead of internal DNS
• Create and connect to VPN without split tunnel

In the end, I found that the fix was to 1) create a new Windows profile and 2) disable the crappy Trend Micro antivirus.  Of note, I recreated the profile at first wihtout disabling AV and I had trouble configuring email - so perhaps disabling the AV was necessary.

winsock failed to initialize

When cleaning up a fakealert virus the other day on an XP machine, I had successfully cleaned it, but none of the network interfaces could get an IP address. My only real clue was a simple dialog box that said "winsock failed to initialize"

Luckily, I found this utility:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html

I ran it, and it fixed my problem very easily.

XP downgrade process for Thinkpad T61

The ThinkPad T61 downgrade process isn't entirely clear, but here's the easy way to do it . . .

In my case, I received 8 CDs from Lenovo/IBM. Six were labeled as recovery CDs, one a supplemental CD, and one was a "rescue and recovery" CD.

I was able to do the downgrade from Vista to XP by this process:

Put in rescue and recovery CD (not disc 1 of 6)

Hold down F12 on bootup (this gets you the boot options screen)

Boot to the CD

From the rescue and recovery manu, choose "restore your system"

choose "restore my hard drive to the original factory state"

choose "I do not want to save any files"

Choose all the obvious options

It'll ask for each of your six CDs, and that's it. It takes forever, but it works.

fixing zip associations in Vista

I had a computer where the zip file got associated with some program other than the compressed file and folder thing. But I wanted it associated it back.

I found these good instructions:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikeormond/archive/2008/04/17/zip-file-extension-association-in-vista-again.aspx

which asked me to run this from a command prompt with admin privilages:

assoc .zip=CompressedFolder

but it didn't work, and then that link led me to these registry fixes, which did work.

http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/1/File-association-fixes-for-Windows-Vista.html

what kind of laptop should I get?

One question I get all the time is - what kind of laptop should I get?

That question is no more easy to answer than what kind of car should I get . . . 

There are many manufacturers with many models with different attributes and price ranges.  I'll try to make this entry non-brand specific and able to be used in the future without mentioning models available the day I'm writing this.

In my opinion, the two most important factors when deciding which laptop to get are price and weight.  Of the hundreds of options you have, this will narrow down your choices significantly.  Most laptops weight between 3 and 8 pounds.  Generally (but not always), the heavier a laptop is, the less expensive.  Generally (but not always), the larger the screen is on a laptop, the heavier it is.  Cost is always a factor.  Generally, most laptops cost between $700 and $3000.  For the most part, you get what you pay for.  In addition to the cost of the laptop, you also need to think about software.  Laptops almost never come with software (such as MS Word).  You often need to buy that separately.

So the next step is to figure out where you are in the aforeomentioned categories.  What is your weight limit and what is your price limit?  Knowing that, it's time to start looking at what is available to you.  My favorite places to look are PC Connection and Dell.  PC Connection is an online retailer that sells virtually all brands of off the shelf laptops (made in a factory to certain predetermined specs).  Dell is the leading seller of made to order laptops (you choose the specs of your laptop and they build it for you to your specs).  PC Connection sells all brands of laptops (except Dell and a small minority) and Dell sells only Dell laptops.  But between the two you are probably looking at 90% of the laptops available.  

With PC Connection, you can look at laptops by weight and by price.  For Dell, it takes a but more fine-tuning.  For Dell, look at the screen sizes and use these approximations of weight.

17" screens - 7 pounds

15" screens - 6 pounds

14" screens - 5 pounds

13" screens - 4.5 pounds

12" screens - 3.5 pounds

Hopefully, this will lead you to what model and brand you want.  Now, you need to think about software, operating system, memory, and warranty.  For software, most people would order a version of Office: Home and Student for home or academic use, Professional (for office use), or try one of the free options like OpenOffice.  A quick google or Amazon search will give you appropriate pricing.  If Windows XP is still available as you read this, you will want Home for home users or Professional if you'll be using it in an office environment.  If you are choosing Vista, you'll choose between Vista Home Premium for home users or Vista Business or Ultimate for an office environment.  You do not want Vista Basic.  Lastly, you'll need memory.  You want 1 GB or more of memory for XP and 2 GB or more of memory for Vista.

You can always go to a Best Buy to look at laptops - which is also an option, and it's what a lot of people do.  What I listed above is how I shop for laptops and how I shop for my client's laptops.  If you have additional questions, please fee free to email me.

Vista flaws found so far

I wish I could like Vista. I started rolling it out to my clients a couple months after it came out. For the most part, it's ok, but here are my main complaints:

1) it is slow - there are too many instances where the computer should just do something and the screen goes white while that damn circle just keeps rotating. These are times when I'm just navigating folders or going from one folder to another within Outlook. And not all the time, but sometimes - on several computers. Also, it can take so long for folders and their contents to come up. Why the hell does it take 10 seconds to display the control panel? If it was just slow consistently, that would be one thing - but when it's inconsistently slow, that speaks to a flaw in the programming.

2) Display settings don't retain. When a laptop goes to sleep, it will often lose all or part of its display settings on an external monitor. I have several clients with an external display and extended desktops (using the laptop screen). Settings do not remain the same after going to sleep or restarting. This happens with and without docking stations.

3) Believe it or not, I think Vista is more crash prone than XP. I find more illegal program messages in Vista than XP.