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Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 requires that you use the http://connect in Internet Explorer on all Windows systems. After upgrading a SBS 2003 system to SBS 2011 I needed to rejoin a Windows XP system to the new server, however, when I attempt to run the utility, I received several different message indicating the I could not connect.

One thing that was not mentioned in many of the other technical articles written about this issue is that this particular system was configured with a static IP address and no default domain. After setting the default domain, the http://connect process worked. Normally this would not be an issue if the workstation had been configured with a DHCP address.

For some reason business owners have come to believe that relocating their telephone lines and Internet service can be done quickly and easily. Some of this misunderstanding and failed expectation may come from the ease of moving a cell phone number from one carrier to another. This is not the case for land line phone numbers or Internet service.

Telephone Service

After completing several updates on Exchange 2013 due to another issue, we found that e-mail messages were going to the Drafts folder instead of the Sent Items folder. In addition the server was not receiving any messages either.

After further investigation we found that the Mail Transport service was failing, not immediately, which was why we didn't notice it after it was started. In this particular case the client had a secondary SMTP port configured for relay messages but that port was setup on both the Exchange 2013 CAS and Database servers but only one of the CAS server actually had the IP address assigned on the NIC. Once the relay SMTP port configuration was removed from the Database server the Mail Transport service ran fine and mail flowed through the system correctly.

One of our clients was using Microsoft Office 2010 on a trial basis but it had expired and therefore purchased a license of Office 2013 Home and Business from Microsoft's online store. After installing the software they attempted to run Outlook 2013 which would start and then display an error "Microsoft Outlook has stopped working". We noticed that all of the Microsoft applications provided the similar error messages.

• Outlook 2013 - Microsoft Outlook has stopped working
• Excel 2013 - Microsoft Excel has stopped working
• Word 2013Microsoft Word has stopped working
• PowerPoint 2013 - Microsoft PowerPoint has stopped working
  
  

Our first attempt was to run a repair on the Microsoft Office installation from the Programs and Features control panel. That made no difference. We then attempted reinstalling the software and still had the same issue. We the found a technical note indicating that ABBY-FineReader was likely the cause of the issue. Sure enough ABBY-FineReader 9.0 was installed with some Epson printer drivers. We uninstalled the ABBY-FineReader software, cleaned the registry of any remains, and then rebooted the system. All of the Microsoft Office 2013 applications worked as expected.

While fixing a client computer I kept having an issue trying to update their Malwarebytes application. Each time the update would attempt to run it would just hang. The system was fairly clean with the exception of one malware application, Babylon Toolbar. The system was also installed with Norton Antivirus, which has not been an issue in the past.

After several attempts to get the update...

Microsoft has recently released several news and technotes regarding a vulnerability recently discovered in Internet Explorer versions 6 through 11. This vulnerability could allow a hacker to compromise a computer that is browsing a web site that has been selectively changed to take advantage of this vulnerability.

News sources have reported that Internet Explorer should not be used and the US Department of Home Land Security is also warning computer users of this issue.

Client's HP Pavilion M9400t was reported as having a noisy fan and then would not boot any longer. The power supply was the primary reason for the system not powering but after replacing the power supply the system would continually reboot. Using the F8 key while booting we were able to force the system to stop on the error and not reboot. This allowed the error message STOP 0x0000007B to be displayed. This error most often is reported when there is a hardware issue.

After backing up the hard drive using Norton Ghost, we went through a series of tests by removing hardware. In this case the video card was an add-in so it was removed but the problem still persisted. Next we checked the BIOS settings and noted the default for the SATA drive was set to RAID. We changed this to IDE and rebooted the system. The system booted normally.

We had a situation where we wanted to setup an Intuit QuickBooks POS system in a locked down configuration so that it was more like a kiosk for the register attendants. There are several ways to go about this but most will lock down every user, but in our case we only wanted to affect the POS users to prevent unnecessary changes to the system.

The process we came up with uses a combination of parental rights, registry hacks, and user menu modifications. You will also need to make sure you create a special local user account that you will assign these changes to. Before attempting this process, make sure you have a backup of your system in the event something doesn't work as expected.

Client's Macbook Pro 8 installed with OS X 10.7.5 Lion would boot up with out any chime, display the user login, but the cursor would just spin without completing the login process.

The client didn't have a backup so our first goal was to get a backup of the drive. That proved a bit of a challenge as it would not mount under any other system prior to v10.7.5. The system booted fine into the Disk Recovery partition, which allowed the disk repair to be run, however it found no issues.

Most boot sector viruses detected by some of the best commercial antivirus software such as Symantec's Norton Antivirus, Microsoft's Security Essentials, or Kapersky's Antivirus can not be removed by these applications. And in many cases a boot sector virus is capable of alluding these applications unless the drive is connected to a clean system that has the AV software actively running.

What is a boot sector virus? This is a computer virus that infects a diskette or hard drive in the area which contains information about the configuration of the disk. The boot sector is used by many computer operating systems to determine how to access the diskette or drive. These viruses replace the critical boot sector program used to start the computer with their own malicious program often causing frequent computer crashes, allowing other malware infections, and performance issues.

After a recent update on a WatchGuard XTM 5 series we were unable to login using Internet Explorer 10 and the WatchGuard Web UI. The only way to connect to the WatchGuard XTM firewall was to use the WatchGuard System Manager. For us this a bit of a handicap in several ways and we refuse to use Chrome or Firefox since they tend to be less secure.

We finally were able to fix it with a suggestion from WatchGuard support.

I am often asked about recommending computers to our clients. The issue I find with this is that there are two types of computer buyers: those who ignore it and those that take the advice. Everyone has an opinion but after working with computers for about 30 years I would like to believe that I know something about computers.

Many years ago some of the best computers were assembled from some of the best parts money could buy. There were some great products in the 80's into late 90's but building a computer was one way to get the best of the best and the satisfaction that you did it yourself.

A client attempted to install an upgrade to Kaspersky Anti-virus, but the install was interrupted and so the system was left in an unstable state. Continued use of the computer frequently resulted in the following Blue Screen of Death.

One of the side effects from this issue was that the hard drive was constantly getting corrupted and several drivers would fail to load. In order to get the system to boot we had to go into safe mode, run a check disk on reboot, and then the system would finally boot and run for a short period of time, which was all we needed.

One of our QuickBooks Enterprise users started to get an error whenever they would run payroll and create checks. The process would complete and checks would be created but QuickBooks would display an error message "An unexpected error has occurred in 'Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions: Professional Services 14.0' and then the application would close.

It is suspected that there was an update applied that changed the security settings in the application that caused this issue because when another user that was an administrator of QuickBooks ran payroll the problem didn't occur. In addition the error message in the Windows Application Event log indicated that the failure was related to access to the employee template file, "Failed adding medicare tax item to employee template - Permission error".

When using the recovery CD for various eMachines (T2080, T2792, T3065) with Windows XP, the computer hangs or freezes at the Name My Computer stage of the process. After spending some time researching the issue, other technicians have noted that the system is stuck trying to configure the video.

The easiest way around this is to shutdown and reboot in VGA mode as follows. If your not sure how to shutdown the computer at this point, just press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds until the computer powers off.

Repair Process

Each time Fedora would release a new version I would install a fresh install of the latest version. The difficulty was always trying to remember how I setup the previous system so that everything would work. In this case the primary function of the Fedor server was for web site hosting. These are the typical steps I used to create my Linux server based on research from others that have posted their process as well as my own experience in the process.

One additional aspect of this process was to support Joomla installations. You will note specific configuration settings that relate to the operation of Joomla in Linux at the end.

While working on a client’s Gateway LT2030u netbook running Windows 7, I ran into an issue resolving dns names to IP addresses. The computer had been infected with a number of malware applications, including some Trojans and a large number of adware entries in the registry. But those were all cleaned up.

Despite several attempts to clear out everything, including:

• IPCONFIG release and renew
• removing NIC adapters and rebooting
• correcting the etc/hosts file

The computer still would not resolve a simple address like www.apple.com. IPCONFIG /ALL indicated that everything was configured correctly but Windows 7 still would not resolve the dns name.

Yes, a standard PING test to a physical IP address worked fine.

One of the most common questions we get regarding mobile devices is how to setup an Apple iPhone with access to a corporate Microsoft Exchange mail system. This doesn't have to be a local system, it could be a hosted cloud Exchange server as well. Many people often will use a POP connection but this really doesn't allow the mobile device to exploit the full capabilities of the Microsoft Exchange services such as synchronizing contacts and calendars. So, get the full benefit of Microsoft Exchange by using the Exchange mail connector on the mobile device.

There are a couple of pre-configuration steps that you may want to take, especially if you have moved your Exchange service to a different hosting provider.

We continually get requests for advice on how to reduce the number of spam e-mail messages and robot calls. In some cases, this is hard to combat but you need to start with these steps.

E-mail

The process for upgrading QuickBooks Enterprise 2012 to QuickBooks Enterprise 2013 is fairly easy, but it may take some time depending on the number of workstations and the size of the database file.

In our client's environment, we run QuickBooks Enterprise on a Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011, which runs as a Virtual Machine (VM) within VMware vSphere 4.1. The first step in any upgrade is to make sure you have a good back up before proceeding.