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The Windows 7 update "System Update Readiness Tool for Windows 7 (KB947821) [May 2014]" will appear hung or stuck during the update process. It will get to about 80 to 90% and just the hard drive activity is all that will indicate that it is still working on the update process. Many have noted it to take several hours. In our own install of this for a client it took almost 6 hours to complete on a system that failed the SFC scan test.

If you are installing the System Update Readiness Tool for Windows 7 (KB947821) besure to allow for a long period of time to install. Do not stop this install or you may corrupt the system to a point where it will not boot and you will be required to reload Windows from scratch.

Gateway One GZ7108

If you are experiencing issues with your wireless keyboard and mouse not working properly, perform the following steps to troubleshoot the wireless keyboard and mouse.

After upgrading a vSphere vCenter appliance to v5.1 Update 2 we found the the vSphere client installed on a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 host machine would fail to connect to the vCenter Server 5.1 due to an unknown error.

vSphere Client could not connect to {vcenter_server}.

We have seen that Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB3038314) fails frequently when it is installed on a freshly installed system using the standard Windows Update process.

The error code 80092004 seems to indicate that the "object or property cannot be found" and in our case that would be true because the install process fails to download the update completely.

One of our users mistakenly installed Google Chrome when installing an Adobe update and then uninstalled it. However the uninstall did not restore all of the Internet Explorer setting causing multiple problems. One issue was that the user could not use Windows Explorer to view an ftp site.

When the user logged into an ftp site and went to "View" and then "Open ftp site in Windows Explorer" nothing would happen. After searching for this issue we found others had a similar problem and were able to export the registry key [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp] and then import it into the computer that was having issues. In our case the [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp] registry key was missing entirely from the user's computer and needed to be recreated.

On day the Send To option lost the Mail Recipient option from a clients Windows 7 system. The client was using Outlook 2010 and the typical solutions posted that suggested creating a new Mail Recipient didn't work.

The following solution did work for our client.

The following error message appears when opening a company file on a Windows computer that is hosted on a Windows Server:

QuickBooks was unable to open the file [path\filename] on the host computer [host name]. Try opening the file with QuickBooks on the host computer or run the QuickBooks Database Server Manager on the host computer and then try opening the file on your computer.

I our case the server was inadvertently rebooted while one or more client systems had their QuickBooks open and connected to the server causing the database to be disconnect improperly. The client was using QuickBooks Enterprise 2013 installed on a Windows Small Business Server 2011. We followed these steps and were able to get the database to open.

The .NET Framework cleanup tool is designed to automatically perform a set of steps to remove selected versions of the .NET Framework from a computer.  It will remove files, directories, registry keys and values and Windows Installer product registration information for the .NET Framework.  The tool is intended primarily to return your system to a known (relatively clean) state in case you are encountering .NET Framework installation, uninstallation, repair or patching errors so that you can try to install again.

There are a couple of very important caveats that you should review before using this tool to remove any version of the .NET Framework from your system:

After setting up a new laptop computer with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, I found that I was unable to access any of my workgroup servers or access my Windows XP workstations. Each time I would attempt to make a connection either using the UNC name and path or using the IP address I would get an error indicating that the spelling was incorrect or that it could not find the location specified. One of the errors I receive is as follows:

Windows cannot access \\{ComputerName}

After upgrading several workstations for a client, who still has a Windows 2000 server, the Windows 7 workstations would no longer connect to the shares on the Win2K server. To resolve this issue we made several attempts.

System Time

The first thing we looked at was the system time on the server. It was off by about 15 minutes. Normally this is not the cause, but to be sure we updated the server time to be in sync with our workstations.

I use to be a frequent visitor to CNET for downloads of trial software and in some cases updates to software which I purchased previously. After my last encounter with CNET I have to recommend to all my clients to stay away from any download from CNET for risk of downloading any number of malware and garbageware onto their computers.

There are allot of good free applications that many of us in the IT field like to use. CNET has been in the past one of the great locations to easily find the utility application you need when you don't have it readily available. We make it a habit to discourage most end users from using any Windows or Mac based tool that can be downloaded from the Internet unless they have extensive experience and intimate knowledge of the system the are using it on. A backup is always a best practice before installing any software.

Recovering various HP and even some Dell system after a hard drive failure without the recovery DVD's can be frustrating. If the owner forgot to create the DVD's, there is a chance that you can still burn them later once the computer is running again. If the owner created the DVD's and lost them, you might be forced to contact the vendor and purchase a new set.

Well, if the recovery partition is still accessible on the original drive, here is a how to recover from the HP recovery partition that might help get the system recovered to the factory default installation.

The SMTP Server Connection Diagnostics Tool is a free utility will enable you to troubleshoot SMTP Server issues more easily than using telnet. It supports both open and SSL connections and contains a built-in library of commands such as EHLO, DATA, RCPT TO, etc.. Nothing to install, just run the executable and step through your commands.

A client had an HP P2-1394 model H3Z88AA desktop system that would turn on briefly, the drives would power up, the fans would spin, and then the system would shut down. After about 5 seconds the process would repeat. This would continue until either the power was removed or the power button was pressed for several seconds forcing the system to the off mode.

Some technical notes found on similar issues suggested the following:

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.

 A frequently posted issue about printers and Windows 10 is not being able to print using the WSD port or the printer reverts to WSD from an IP setting. This appears to be a bug in the WSD port provider in Windows 10. After reading many commonly described issues where Windows 10 says the printer is offline when it isn't and the vendor software...

We often have found with many of the new routers and Windows 7 and later will default to IPv6 for all their Internet lookups when browsing the web. The issue is that seen by many is that the resolution of names in the URL are delayed until an IPv4 is used to complete the lookup. This problem started after an update by Microsoft that caused IPv6 to be preferred over IPv4.

Microsoft released a Knowledge Base article on this issue, KB2533454 - Resolving Internet connectivity issues after World IPv6 Launch (June 6, 2012). This KB article contains a Microsoft FixIt tool to change the preferred IP version from IPv6 back to IPv4

Upgrading to Intuit's QuickBooks Enterprise 2013 seemed to be an easy task at first, even though the step by step documentation was next to impossible to find on Intuit's web site. However, it took several hours to track down what seemed to be a simple issue, getting the multi-user mode working again.

Here are some steps to follow for upgrading QuickBooks Enterprise 2013:

In the business realm there is often a need to run applications from a remote system or through a terminal services connection on a remote server. This works great in most cases except when you are attempting to use a local USB device with that remote session. There are several products available that can be used to help make the use of remote devices that use the local USB port and one of them is from RDS Tools.

We have not tested this product but are currently posting this article for notification purposes in the event others may be looking for this type of product. At some point we will likely implement this with one or more of our clients and then write a review. If you are reading this post and have used the USB for RDP tool from RDS Tools, feel free to leave a comment on your experience.

While working with a client system we found that the Internet Explorer or any other browser application kept having issues with accessing the Internet. Reseting the browser settings would temporarily resolve the problem but it would quickly return the moment we would leave the client.

It turns out the client was using Juno as their e-mail application. As the user would review their mail they would occasionally get a message that had a hyperlink in the message to a web site. When clicking the link Juno would automatically open by change the proxy settings to force the browsing through their system.