Fix PDF Previewer in Windows x64 Outlook or Explorer

PDF Preview (Outlook and Explorer) should work in Windows 7 with Adobe Reader installed (this contains preview handler). However due to the broken (for 2 years) Adobe installer not inserting correct registry key it does now work in 64 bit version. There is a very simple tweak (download .reg file and click it) to make it work.

Full details are at http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/index.html

Copying large files to USB in Windows 7 and Teracopy

I have various 15GB files copied to the old portable USB HD. Microsoft spend billions on Windows 7 and still have not sorted some of the basic file copy issues. Better than Vista but still falls over in some situation. With a particular drive formatted at exFAT (for large USB flash) it would not copy 15GB file. It locked out the PC – it actually slowed a Core7 machine with 8GB RAM to such an extent that it looked locked out (this has been described) - pull out USB cable and all jumps back to life. The 5GB file with odd {} name would only copy at << 1Mb/s - whereas a larger 7GB file did copy. Changing the name {} did not make any difference. Anyway installed Teracopy 2.01 which I have used for years and was meant to be redundant in W7 and can copy all at 20MB/s and not locked out the USB drive. Definitely install Teracopy for Win7 - why did not Microsoft just purchase Teracopy technology - saved their budget and better performance.

NetBeans, JRuby, Rail, SQLite

Looking at NetBeans IDE for Ruby on Rails Development. Trying to use SQLite as an easy way to evaluate RoR it but driver is not present by default. This is a link how to add driver support and the databases can then be managed from within NetBeans IDE.

The Firefox plug-in for SQLite Manager is another excellent way to have GUI for SQLite (search to add plugin)

Vista (64bit) to Windows 7 (64bit) Upgrade

Well I have now completed and overall it has gone reasonably smoothly although you do need to allow yourself quite a bit of time to sort out the various "small tweaks" required. The following are a few points that may e of help.

• The Upgrade Advisor suggested that the only software that was "advisory" to uninstall was ATI Update manager (Catalyst Control Centre was not installed) and reinstall afterwards. Not quite as simple as uninstalling the Update Manager means that you end up uninstalling the ATI driver from the graphics card - this reverts to the old Microsoft drivers that came with the Dell Core 7 in 2009 so not very old). However for the first few months I was plagued by the dreaded ATIKMDAG fault and yet this has stopped since upgraded to drivers 8.620.0. After the install put the Windows 7 disk in and within 2 screens (luckily before the install started) a dreaded BSOD and ATIKMDAG. I was not going to risk installing and have a BSOD mid install so ran latest ATI drives and updated them - this meant ATI Update manager was on but this did not seem to make a difference.
• The upgrade went OK but took 1.5 hours on machine with 6GB of ram and Core i7 processor. There are periods when it seems to stop - leave it go for coffee.
• For some reason Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 need to be reactivated with the activation code when Windows 7 started. I did have KIS turned off during the upgrade.
• If you did have a quick launch bar the folder is still there under
  C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch .
  and you can add it as a toolbar to Taskbar in Windows 7. However as I have found no way or changing the name of tool bar and this takes up quite a lot of space I suggest copying/renaming the folder to something like QL before you add it to the taskbar as toolbar.
• After the upgrade I ran the excellent CCleaner (latest version runs fine with Windows 7) there was some registry cleaning needed to be done but not too much and CCleaner does all this automatically.
• VirtualBox. I run virtual versions of XP, Windows 7 RC and Ubuntu under VirtualBox (highly recommended for PC setup). The XP failed to run or start. The other two used a NAT set up on their network connection but the XP ran on a Bridge connector previously. The NAT setup failed to work with the XP VM (did work with WIn7Rc and Ubuntu) and there was no bridge to choose. Eventually I installed the new version of VirtualBox (3.0.10) as it has been prompting me to upgrade from 3.0.4 for some time. The install obviously recreated the bridge connector that had been wiped from Windows Network connections and the XP VM then ran.
• I have a Dell (Logitech) wireless keyboard and mouse. The little icon in the system tray area need to be set in Notification area to show all the time if you want to see when caps lock is on.
• If you want to use the Windows Live Essentials (including the excellent Blog writer - I use this with Google Blogger) then you need to download it as Windows Update but "Optional". I'm not sure that all the Photo editing tools are integrated and Windows seems to get confused between Live Photo gallery, Prop Photo tools, Windows Photo Viewer. Windows Photo Viewer no longer appears on a search but is there on right click to "open with". However Live Photo gallery does not appear in the list of Program defaults but when you set it up and takes control of various file extensions it does show as being identified for certain file formats but not as list of default programs. Not really joined up thinking.

However the upgrade is well worth doing - much slicker, faster and lots of "gizmos" do seem to make work faster.

Photo tools, Microsoft and Metadata

A useful list of Microsoft photo tool is click here

However it may be useful to point out a subtlety that they do not all work together well with regard to Metadata - a small but crucial part of photo labelling for many. In Windows 7 if you create keywords in Pro Photos Tools they show as tags when viewed in Live Photo Gallery. However if you create tags in Live Photo Gallery they do NOT show up in Pro Photo tools; more to the point if you add a Keyword in Pro Photo tools it OVERWRITES the tags as displayed in Live Photo Gallery and when viewed in Photo Gallery they have gone and replaced with what was inserted in Tools rather than having it appended..

Not sure how Photoshop Essential interacts as do not have it but this fundamental problem between two Microsoft products is disappointing. Metadata seems the Cinderella of photo editing packages.

XAMPP, Wordpress and USB Flash Drive

Testing running Apache and mySQL from USb drive without installation; good for demos without insalling on lcoal machine. This works well and allows you to test the excellent Wordpress (more than a blog) for small and intermediate web sites. The XAMPP package is really easy to install - just copy it to USB, some simple config via XAMPP control panel (start via the .exe) to get mySQL running and configure the database, user and password in the Wordpress configfile (change name by removing "-sample") and will all run from http://localhost. There are detailed tutorials on the web.

Beware if youa re running Skype then Apavhe will not start - hangs on the Port 80 step; close down Skype and all will be fine.

KIS and Save As PDF in Office 2007

The facility for Office 2007 to save as PDF, either via the addin or the SP2 may not with if Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) or KAV is installed. When attempting to save as PDF the error is given that "File is locked and may be in use by another application". This is the result of KIS but only seem a problem with KIS 8.0.0.506 (the latest) and not earlier versions. There is no predictable permanent fix but if you temporarily disable the Proactive defense then the Save as PDF works. Other suggestions seem to be a bit hit and miss. Kaspersky do not seem to have a fix.
http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=94536

CX6400 Vista 32 and 64 bit printer drivers

Simple problem but with a slightly indirect solution. The LAN consisted of mixture of 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista with the printer, an Epson CX6400 on the 32 bit Vista machine.

It was identified that there were Vista drivers (32 and 64 bit) for the CX6400 but these were only available via Windows Update. The difficulty was getting the printer shared with the correct driver on the the 64 bit machine. The printer drivers are not available to download as seperate .inf installation.

With the printer switched on the 32 bit machine found it and gave the option to locate and install the driver via Windows Update. This worked fine. On the LAN the 64 bit machine could see the printer and recognised it needed a driver and offered to download it from the 32 bit machine - but of course it was not there! Windows update had only installed the 32 driver and not the ones for other OS's. The option to make these avaaible was ticked in the printer setup to allow other OS drivers to be stored but this can be only set after the single driver has been installed via windows update.

As Vista 64 but could not find the driver on the 32 bit Vista machine it offered the "Have Disk" option of supplying an .inf file, which of course was not available. It did not go to the internet and try with windows update to get the correct Vista driver.

The only solution was to physically attach the CX6400 to the Vista 64 bit machine, let windows update install the 64 but driver and then return the printer to the 32 bit machine. This time when adding a shared printer it had the correct driver installed and all was OK. The "local" CX6400 that was no longer present and could then be deleted after the other printer was shared.

You would have expected windows update to check the Internet what was available not just offer a disk.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2009

Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) 2009 was installed on two Dells both running Vista and initially both set up connected via Ethernet cabled to Linksys ADSL / Wireless- Router. the rest of local LAN was an XP and Vista machine. The default settings were used and all worked well each machine could see shares and other machines etc. After set up one machine wa moved to another room and connected via 802.11G Linksys wireless USB connector and Vista to the secured local network.

Internet access via wireless connection and ADSL Router was OK. However it was impossible to get it to see the other computers on the local LAN. All the Vista settings and security sharing were checeked. Eventually by disabling KIS firewall the problem was traced to KIS firewall on the wireless connected machine.

By default either for wireless networks in general or because it had initially been set up as wired and then made a wireless connection, the wireless connection was classed as "public" network and tight security applied to it. This had to be changed deep in the settings from Public to Local. TO do this use KIS 2009>System Security>Firewall>Settings>Network and then edit the relevant network listed.

Changing the wireless connection from public to local in KIS 2009 then meant that all the machines could see each other. It would have been much more helpful if when KIS detected a new network that it gave you the option to decide if this was local or public or at least made it more obvious.

Graphic card connectors

Installing 2 new Dells ( a Core i7 and E8400) both with ATI HD 3650 cards. The cards come with 3 connectors a DVI, a DisplayPort (unexpected) and a HDMI. A few points

• Only two of the three connectors can be used at any one time (any of the two),hence the card can drive only two monitors at once. Plug three in and ATI catylst centre knows about then an gives the option of dragging the unused one to replace an existing one.
• DisplayPort adaptors are available - but the best ones are with a short lead (about 15cm) otherwsie the connector is quite long and heave on the card.
• When using a DVI to VGA connectors it does not use all the DVI pins. This I discovered after much struggling when one machine would not display anything from the DVI with a DVI monitor but when a VGA monitor was plugged in and a DVI>>VGA adaptor was used it dispalyed OK. THre was a cracked sinlge port on the DVI output and the DVI connector enaged this but the DVI>>VGA adaptor did not use this pin socket!