Start a Microsoft Office 2007 program in Safe Mode

This is really simple, and can help diagnose issues and problems you may be having with Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. In order to start the application in safe mode, simply hold down the Ctrl key when selecting it from the Start menu (Start->All Programs->Microsoft Office, then pick the icon of the program you want to open). You will be prompted asking if you want to start the application in safe mode, so assuming you do, select yes to continue.

Microsoft has this posted here

"Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook" error

I had a user report that she could no longer get Outlook 2007 to open and was getting the error "Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window." dialog box, as seen below.

I wasn't sure what was causing it, so I started my troubleshooting. I first tried opening Outlook in Safe mode, but that didn't help. I knew she has installed some Windows updates early today so I tried a system restore, but that didn't work. Then I turned to thinking her mail files were possibly corrupt, so I used scanpst to check them for errors and repair what it found. That didn't work either. I was stumped, so I turned to Google. It was then that I ran across what ended up solving my problem.

It was an Outlook switch I had never heard of before. resetnavpane, and it worked like a charm (thanks d-pabs). Here's how to fix it, and I'm going to assume you're using Outlook 2007. If you run into this issue while running Office 2003, the only difference is the path to the Outlook.exe file should be Office11, not Office12 as shown below

1. Go to Start->Run

2. Type cmd and press OK (alternatively, open a command prompt window however you'd like)

3. In the command prompt window, type "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe" /resetnavpane and press Enter. Make sure you actually type the quotation marks with the path in this instance since it is required in order for the command prompt to recognize the path to the Outlook executable since there is a space in it.

4. This should start up Outlook and you should be able to get into your email again

napclientprov.mof error during Windows XP install

First, I'm going to guess that you either tried to slipstream Windows XP SP3 onto your install CD, or you have an install CD that is supposed to contain service pack 3. This isn't a bad thing, but from what I've read, the problem is related to CD's slipstreamed with service pack 3. Anyway, on to the fix.

The good news is that at this point of the install, napclientprov.mof should already be installed on the machine. You can click on Browser, then navigate to C:\Windows\system32\WBEM. You should see the napclientprov.mof file there, which you can then select and click OK to get the installer to continue. I don't have much more of an explanation than that, but it solved the issue for me so I'd expect it to do the same for you.

If you don't know what slipstreaming is, it is when you package Windows updates on your install CD so you don't have to go through all the updates post-install. It can save a lot of time if you have multiple machines to install Windows on, and it's pretty easy to do using a free program called nLite. To read more about how to slipstream updates, check out one of my earlier posts here.

iPhone not recognized in iTunes on Windows XP

I had a user who got an iPhone, installed iTunes (8.2), but couldn't get the iPhone to work in iTunes. It is a 16GB iPhone 3G. I took a look and couldn't quite figure it out right away either. I uninstalled/reinstalled iTunes, checked device manager and saw the iPhone recognized as a digital still camera, and kept getting an error from iTunes saying that it detected an iPhone but it wasn't recognized properly and needed to be unplugged then plugged back in. That didn't help. I finally seem to have figured it out, and came up with what I expect caused it to begin with.

First off, I belive the cause of the problem was that the user had first plugged the phone in to the computer while talking on it. This caused the OS to have issues recognizing the phone correctly, which then carried over every time the device was plugged back in. The reason I believe this is because I got it to work, then the user plugged the phone in while talking to me and it stopped working again. Luckily the same fix worked both times, and is quick and easy.

The solution to the problem, once it starts happening, is to update the Apple Mobile Device USB Driver. To do this, follow these instructions:

1. Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Manage

2. In the left tree-view column, click on Device Manager, which is under the System Tools section

3. On the right, expand Universal Serial Bus controllers which is likely towards the bottom

4. You should see Apple Mobile Device USB Driver there. If not, make sure your iPhone is plugged in. Assuming it is there, right-click on it and select Update Driver

5. Choose to allow it to install the update automatically, which should be the default, and click Next

6. It should appear to be doing some searching, then act as if it's installing something, then it will say it is finished. Click the button to close

7. Now try opening iTunes again and see if your iPhone is recognized correctly. Hopefully it is, and you can go on using your iPhone like normal and synchronizing it with iTunes

Once I updated the Mobile Device driver it seemed to work fine. Then the user plugged it back in while talking on it, and the same error started appearing again in iTunes. Again, a quick driver update and the problem was gone. If you're having the same problem and run across this, hopefully it takes care of it and you can stop stressing out over your phone. Good luck

Update: If this doesn't work for you try resetting your phone, then uninstall iTunes, reinstall iTunes, then plug your phone back in. It sounds like a hassle, and it is, but if it'll fix your phone then it'll be well worth it. To restore and reset your phone, check out my previous post. If you can't reset using the normal method you may have to use recovery or DFU mode, which are covered in previous posts as well. Once the phone has been restored to factory defaults (which means you need to choose to set it up as a new iPhone during the restore process), then go ahead with uninstalling iTunes. To do that, follow the uninstall directions in the Apple KB. Once you've uninstalled iTunes, go ahead and reinstall it while making sure to restart your computer in between the uninstall and reinstall. Once iTunes has been reinstalled, plug your iPhone into your computer and let the computer recognize and install it. If this works properly then you can go ahead and use iTunes to restore your phone to the most recent backup of the old settings. If this doesn't work then I'd suggest going right into a DFU mode restore if you didn't have to already, then trying to plug the phone in again. If that still doesn't work then I would say it points at a hardware failure. Be sure to verify your connection cable is working correctly before completely giving up, but if that's not it either then you're stuck relying on the warranty (if you still have one) or using the iPhone as a paperweight.

Show or hide icons on your Blackberry phone

I've seen this happen to people many times, but sometimes icons seem to disappear from their Blackberry menu and they don't know how to get them back. Sometimes it appears to be completely random, and other times it's probably the user clicking too quickly. Either way, it's easy to hide or show icons. Here's how:

To hide icons

1. Highlight the icon you want to hide

2. Hold down Alt, then press down on the select button

3. Scroll down to Hide and press down on the select button

To show icons

1. On the menu screen, hold Alt and press down on the select button

2. Scroll down to Show All and select it

3. Now you should see all the icons, with the hidden icons looking mostly transparent. Highlight the icon you want to show

4. Hold down Alt, then press down on the select button. Hide should be checked

5. Scroll down to Hide and press down on the select button to uncheck that option

iPhone Lite on Verizon's network

I just got out of a meeting with Verizon rep, and in talks with the rep I asked about the likelihood of Verizon getting the iPhone. According to the rep, the iPhone Lite is slated to be released yet this year (2009, but no definite date), followed by the full iPhone on the Verizon network in early 2010. They're also working on their EVDO upgrade, which will be known as LTE (long-term evolution) and that's expected to be implemented in 2010 as well, but this has already been reported by various sources. The iPhone Lite will be a slightly smaller than the current iPhone models, and will also have less memory. For those of us who really just need a phone for calls and email, it'll probably be a good fit rather than the overkill we get with the current iPhones. Tethering was also mentioned, and the rep expects it to be allowed on the Verizon network. From the conversation we had, I'd say AT&T needs to watch out because their reign on the iPhone may be in jeopardy soon.

UPDATE 10/28/2009 - As most of you already probably know, recently Verizon released new iPhone attack ads because of the upcoming release of a Google Android phone on the Verizon network. At this point, it is unlikely that Verizon would do this is they were planning on getting the iPhone themselves, so I think it is safe to say that iPhone users are stuck with AT&T even longer. The good news is that with Google gaining momentum and increasing the availability of their Android phone selection to more providers, Apple won't have much of a choice but to open up the iPhone to other carriers in order to keep up. The problem is that it likely won't happen soon, and the newest thought is that Verizon will be looked at for the iPhone only after they've finished deploying their upcoming LTE network.

Quickbooks Pro 2009 error 15203 73952

We decided to use Quickbooks for a company setup at work, but after installing and getting to the final step to create a new company, we kept getting an error code 15203 73952 and Quickbooks would close. We couldn't get a company file created because of this and without one, there was no point in having the software. The machine was a fresh install of Windows XP Pro, so I turned directly to Intuit's Quickbooks support. The solution, according to them, is to open one of the sample company files installed with the application. Once the sample company file has been opened, go to File->New Company... and set up your new company. It should take you through the Wizard/Interview process again, but this time it should complete correctly at the end. However, this means that if you've already filled out the information from before, you probably will need to do it again. Apparently there is some glitch with the new company setup which can be bypassed by first opening the sample company file and then choosing to create a new company file from there while the sample company file is open.

It sounds like a quick software update would fix that, but maybe the issue isn't causing problems for many other than me since I didn't really find any other information about it on the web. If you're having the issue and find this post helpful, leave a comment and let them know that this is something they should really take care of. If this workaround fixes it for everyone, great, but it's still a programming bug that is a nuisance.

Weird magnifying glass view in OS X

If you've ever been using OS X and ran into a problem with the screen being magnified around the mouse, you're not alone. I get asked about it every now and then by panicking designers thinking that something went really wrong. It's actually a built-in system feature, and is very easy to turn on or off. Go to your System Preferences, then under the System section select Universal Access. You should see a setting for Zoom, which should be turned on. Change that to off and the magnifying glass view will go away.

How to backup or restore and iPhone or iPod touch

I'm working on transferring information from an iPhone 3G to and iPhone 3G S and needed to find out how to backup the information from the iPhone 3G and restore it to the 3G S. It turns out that Apple already has an article written for this, and the process is very simple. It's really just a matter of changing a radio button. Rather than write it all out here, the link to the Apple article is http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414. This would also cover how to restore settings to an iPhone that stops working like normal, assuming you can still get a computer to recognize the device. It also has instructions for how to update your iPhone, which may be useful with the recent release of the iPhone 3.0 OS

If you're wondering how to change the iTunes account associated with your iPhone, check out this other post.

Sharepoint report dashboard access denied error

If you try accessing a dashboard you've created, but instead of getting data you receive an Access Denied error that looks like this

you can fix this by adding the site responsible for holding the data source to the reporting site's trusted locations. To do this:

1. Log in to the Sharepoint central administration

2. From there, go to Application Management

3. Under the Office Sharepoint Server Shared Services section, click on "Create or configure the farm's shared services"

4. Click on SharedServices1 (or whatever you named your shared service process instance)

5. Under the Excel Services Settings section, click on "Trusted file locations"

6. Click on "Add Trusted File Location"

7. Fill out the information listed, directing it to the Sharepoint library you would like to use for your data source. The settings have descriptions and should be self-explanatory

8. After you have your trusted location setup, go back to your reporting page and refresh. Your KPI's, reports, and whatever else should now load correctly since the site can access the data at this point

For the TechNet article, you can find it here