How-To » Network Night at Cpl-Shoe.com

Cannot insert PDF objects into a PowerPoint file.

Apr 072011

This one had me chewing my teeth for a few days, but it looks like it’s been worked out. The issue is that a user will try to insert a PDF into a PowerPoint file (any version 2003/2007/2010), and they receive the following error:

The Server Application, source file, or item cannot be found, or returned an unknown error. You may need to reinstall the server application.

You can try to insert via Insert Tab—>Object—>Adobe Acrobat PDF or dragging and dropping the PDF directly into the PowerPoint file. The fix for this I found after posting to the Adobe forums. Disable Protected mode if you are running Adobe Reader X. (this is accurate as of v 10.0.1)

Disable protected mode manually by choosing Edit > Preferences > General tab and deselecting Enable Protected Mode. The fix wasn’t immediate for me oddly enough. It made the “Create New” button work for inserting, but not “Create From File”. This behavior ended after a day, perhaps a reboot is in order after changing the setting. Either way, it worked!

Let me know if you’ve had a different experience. More importantly, update the Adobe forum threads discussing this if you have additional info to add.

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Outlook 2007 "The Operation Failed"

How-To, Windows 7 3 Responses »

Jan 272011

So, I had a lot of fun troubleshooting this one. The user has a new HP ProBook laptop running Windows 7 and Office 2007. The symptom is that they can not consistently send an email with more than one addressee. When the user sends an email with more than one address, as soon as they hit Send, they receive the error “The operation failed.” This symptom persists on both email accounts associated with the Outlook profile. (A POP3 and an Exchange account)

Searching on this error, I found many variations to its cause, and a lot of proposed solutions. What worked for me, was uninstalling the entire HP ProtectTools suite, and then performing a Repair operation on Office from Add/Remove Programs. I think that approach might be a bit heavy handed, but I was short on time at the moment, and the suite was only interfering with the user’s work, not augmenting it.

If I have the opportunity to work on this again, I’m going to start with HP’s Privacy Manager that hooks into Outlook and installs a toolbar. Many of the posts I read seemed to have the common theme of killing a third party application that was trying to augment Outlook. If you have this problem, and come across a more elegant solution than nuking HP ProtectTools from orbit, let me know!

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Random MAC address tip!

How-To 1 Response »

Aug 112010

I recently had cause to need the MAC address of a Windows XP machine on my network that was logged into by another user, so I couldn’t do my usual laborious Remote Desktop—> CMD —> Ipconfig /all. That’s right. I had to learn how to get it the easy way, and I thought I’d share it with the class.

It involves using the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) command, which I’m dreadfully unfamiliar with. If you open a command shell and just type ARP, the results aren’t all that fascinating. I get the IP and MAC addresses for my internal DNS servers, and my gateway.

Now, ping the computer you need the MAC for. You can ping it by name, or by IP. Do ARP –a, and the same servers are listed, but in addition you get the server you just pinged in the list. Handy! Depending on your recent network activities, multiple computers besides the ones I specified may be included in this list.

Thanks to ‘UberGeek316’ for the tip!

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Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension “.js”.

How-To 7 Responses »

Apr 142010

I ran across this error a few days ago while setting up a PHP server on my Windows XP Pro SP3 box for testing purposes. As part of this setup, a script needs to be run that associates the .php extension with php-cgi.exe. Here is the script:

cscript %windir%\system32\inetsrv\fcgiconfig.js -add -section:"PHP" ^
-extension:php -path:"C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe"

The problem, is that when I tried to run the script, I got the error: Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension “.js”. It took me quite a bit of searching before I found the fix that worked for me on this IBM forum. Hopefully, if you’re facing this issue, you find my article before the 100 other articles talking about the 99 other fixes that didn’t work for me. :) Continue reading »

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CSS Math! (How to figure out CSS selector priority)

How-To, HTML and CSS 1 Response »

Apr 062010

Today, I ran into a problem with some CSS code I was modifying. I was making what I thought was a simple change, but the change refused to show up when I refreshed. Changing the declaration type from a class to an ID, and stripping out some HTML selectors made the problem go away, but I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. That’s when I ran across this article at hungred.com.

Selector Order Priority

I knew CSS favored more specific over less specific. However, I mixed up what that meant. I thought more specific was just to have MORE information pointing at the item in question. It’s not quite so simple. Compare the following two samples:

<style>
p .bordered {
border: 1px black solid;
}
.bordered {
border:	5px red dotted;
}
</style>
<div>
	<p class="bordered">Bordered?</p>
</div>

<style>
p.bordered {
border: 1px black solid;
}
.bordered {
border:	5px red dotted;
}
</style>
<div>
	<p class="bordered">Bordered?</p>
</div>

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Enabling new regional themes in Windows 7

How-To, Just BS, Windows 7 No Responses »

Mar 292010

Did you know that Windows 7 shipped with at least four regional themes that you can’t see by default? Me either until this week! It’s pretty simple to install each one, you’ll be done in seconds.

Paste each of the following lines into the address bar of a windows explorer window, and hit enter. (see pic to the left for clarification) Once you are inside the folder, double click the XX.theme file in there to install it. If you browse the folders manually instead of using these links, you will need to disable hidden files and folders.

%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-AU\Theme
%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-CA\Theme
%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-GB\Theme
%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-US\Theme
%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-ZA\Theme

I’ve also seen that some of the following country themes exist, though I don’t have access to them on a US licensed version of Home Premium. If you want to see everything you have available, just browse back to the MCT folder, and see what’s in there!

%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-DE\Theme
%windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-JP\Theme

Each time you double click a theme file it will open your personalization control panel, so you may as well leave it open until you’re done. Once all your themes are installed, enjoy all of your new choices!

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How to switch MSOL Exchange Hosted from External Relay to Authoritative mode.

How-To, MSOL Exchange Hosted, W2K Migration No Responses »

Mar 262010

OK. Of the approximately 6 people who have seen this site, everyone bailed about halfway through that headline except the guy I worked with who wrote this how-to. No problem, I’ll just press on. :)

So, what did that headline mean? In one of my previous articles on Exchange Hosted, I mentioned ‘email coexistence’. What this means, is that we weren’t ready to shut our Exchange server down. There were accounts on that server that either has not been migrated, or were not ready to be disabled. So what Exchange hosted allows you to do is set up your Exchange server as an External Relay.

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MCX1- The mystery profile.

How-To, Just BS, Windows 7 3 Responses »

Mar 252010

Some of you (that have a specific setup) might have noticed that you have an extra profile in your Windows 7 C:\Users directory. MCX1-%COMPUTERNAME%. I noticed mine when it started adding the following line into my backup results:

The backup completed but some files were skipped.

Backup encountered a problem while backing up file C:\Users\Mcx1-CPL-SHOE\Contacts. Error:(The system cannot find the file specified. (0×80070002))
Backup encountered a problem while backing up file C:\Users\Mcx1-CPL-SHOE\Searches. Error:(The system cannot find the file specified. (0×80070002))

I wasn’t sure why that profile existed in the first place, and didn’t appreciate it mucking up my backups. I was poised to just delete it, when I realized that might be a silly move. Research twice, delete once. (see item #9 under ‘Set up Xbox 360 as a Windows Media Center Extender’)

So the profile was legit, it was created when I connected Media Center to my Xbox 360. So how do I make my backups quit complaining? What if I just made the folders? Would that satisfy it? It turns out it does. I created two empty folders named C:\Users\Mcx1-CPL-SHOE\Contacts and C:\Users\Mcx1-CPL-SHOE\Searches, and it was happy.

After all this, I ran across this Microsoft article which goes into much more detail about why backup wants to back up those folders despite their non-existence. But in my humble opinion, just create the folders and move on unless you want to spend your weekend optimizing your registry.

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The Windows 7 Taskbar- How to make it work for you

How-To, Windows 7 No Responses »

Mar 222010

A great new feature in Windows 7 is the taskbar. It can be a bit of a shock though, and many people want to revert back to the ‘old way of doing things’. Allow me to explain what you have to gain by leaving it as-is, and show you some tricks to make it even better. Then, if you still don’t like it, I’ll explain how to put it back to Windows XP behavior.

First. what is it that’s going on down there? You used to just have a clean taskbar, maybe a little area with quick launch icons that stayed tucked out of the way and left room for all the program windows. Now they’re huge, and when you launch them, you don’t get a program window at all, it just glows!

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Windows Search. Kill it with fire?

How-To, Windows 7 No Responses »

Mar 192010

I wanted to take a moment and talk about this feature Windows added awhile back. I know quite a few people who when ‘optimizing’ a computer will go through a ritual of setting certain things up, and removing other processes/programs. I have a ritual like this, and I’ll admit some of it might be voo-doo or superstition. One of these often targeted programs is Windows Search, and I don’t think it necessarily deserves to have its service disabled as a setup measure.

Windows Search 4.0 has a purpose, and it can be pretty handy, depending on how you use your computer. First, it only indexes a few common places (Desktop, My Docs/Pics/etc, Email). What does it mean to index vs. plain old search? When you search your hard drive with Search Companion, your computer is taking the time to look at each file, determine if it meets your criteria, and moving on. With Indexing, it searches beforehand (this is the thing people complain is slowing their computers), and places all the relevant data into a database. When you perform a search with Indexing, it can sort the database, and find your answer MUCH faster. The key is to limit how much work it is to maintain that database. Continue reading »

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Older Entries

Cannot insert PDF objects into a PowerPoint file.

Outlook 2007 "The Operation Failed"

Random MAC address tip!

Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension “.js”.

CSS Math! (How to figure out CSS selector priority)

Selector Order Priority

Enabling new regional themes in Windows 7

How to switch MSOL Exchange Hosted from External Relay to Authoritative mode.

MCX1- The mystery profile.

The Windows 7 Taskbar- How to make it work for you

Windows Search. Kill it with fire?

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