Installing Crystal Ease for all users
Posted by: David
Why won't Crystal Ease install for all users?
There are two reasons why it might not be working even though you might have installed is successfully.
- You installed the software on a computer using an account that is not an administrator.
- If you did install it as an admin and can't get it to run on other accounts that is because Crystal Ease doesn't support all accounts to run from the initial installation without some modification.
What can you do about it?
A: You installed the software on an account that wasn't an administrator
- Uninstall Crystal Ease.
- Log onto an account that is a computer administrator.
- Install Crystal Ease.
- Enter your release code.
- Enter upgrade release code if necessary.
B: You installed the software as an admin, but want other users to have access to the program.
Since Crystal Ease doesn't support this necessarily, it won't be a popular solution but there isn't much for choices. Crystal Ease will always work on the account which installed it and entered the release codes. Here is what you do for other accounts that will use the computer.
- Go to C:\Program Files\Surfing Gecko Software\Crystal Ease\ (or wherever you installed it)
- Find CEV.EXE and make it a shortcut on the desktop of the account (or all users account) that will be using it. Delete the old shortcut
- When that user goes to open Crystal Ease for the first time, it will ask for the release codes. Unfortunately they will have to have someone enter in the release codes if they don't have access to them.
- Once someone has the release codes set up on their account on a particular computer they can continue opening Crystal Ease as they please.
Big time tip for success
Create a generic account for users to log into if you expect more than a few people to log onto and use Crystal Ease on a computer. This way you will only have to prepare Crystal Ease one time instead of doing it several times.
Word and Outlook are messed up whenever I open a new document/email
Posted by: David
What's wrong?
You opened up Word or Outlook and were going to type a new document or email but the format is all messed up.
How did this happen?
You accidently, or maybe not so accidently changed your template for regular blank documents.
What does a regular blank template mean?
Every time you open up Word or Outlook (which uses Word) you open up a blank document template. Normally this would just include a basic file with normal margins and nothing in it.
Some people change their normal template because they do certain jobs over and over so it was a good idea for Microsoft to allow you to edit that, but if you didn't know that you changed it or how it was possible to change it then you have a problem, and that's why you are here.
OK, so you understand what is going on but you just want to fix it.
Windows 7 Office 07
- First make sure you have your folder options set to view hidden files. You can search how to do that if you don't know how, it is very simple.
- Then, browse to your C: drive, then go to Users > Username > App Data > Roaming > Microsoft > Templates and you should see the normal.dotm file.
normal.dotm
- From here you should close Outlook and Word and make sure that they are closed in the task manager.
- Simply delete the normal.dotm template file. It will be recreated from scratch when you start Word again.
Windows XP Office 07/03
- Follow the same isntructions for Windows 7 and Office 07 but go to C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates.
- From here you can delete normal.dotm for Office 07 or normal.dot for Office 03.
Tip for success
Try to remember this can affect Outlook as well. Outlook uses Word to edit e-mails so it is important that you recognize this as a possible problem for similar issues with Outlook as well. Most people who use a computer wont understand this, so it is important to keep it in mind.
Desktop icons are gone/dissappeared in Windows 7
Posted by: David
Why are my desktop icons missing?
There really isn't a good reason why they are missing, perhaps you accidently hit the wrong button earlier, or someone is messing with you. It can happen in other ways as well. This personally happened to me after installing a single update for Windows 7.
The simple fix
- Right click your desktop
- Choose View
- Make sure 'Show desktop icons' is selected
Quick tip: saving a chkdsk log
Posted by: David
Why save a chkdsk log
Sometimes you can't find your chkdsk log in the event viewer. It happens. Instead of freaking out and wondering what happened and if your drive is actually good or not you should go ahead and prevent such worries.
How to save the chkdsk log
Open up the run command. Type in cmd and hit enter or click OK.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, in Vista or Windows 7 you can go to start, then click on All Programs, then click Accessories, and then click on Command prompt.
When the command prompt is up, type in "chkdsk c: > c:\logfile.txt" and hit enter. What this command does is chk the c: drive and creates a .txt file that will display the results of the scan. The log file will be located at c:\logfile.txt.
Here is an example.
If you want to do something else with the chkdsk command such as run repairs on the drive, type in chkdsk /? to find out what options you can give the command. The most common command to try and fix your hard drive is to type in "chkdsk c: > c:\logfile.txt /f /r"
Spellcheck not working with Office 07?
Posted by: David
What is wrong?
Someone probably just replied back to an e-mail or a letter you typed up in Word and they were probably laughing at you for horribly misspelling a word. You go to see the e-mail again and realize that spell check didn't work when you typed it or else you wouldn't have made the mistake.
How do I fix it?
- Close all office products.
- Go to Start -> Run.
- Here type in regedit and hit Enter. If you are Windows 7 you will need to go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories and then you need to right click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator. Once the command prompt is up, type in regedit and hit Enter.
- Once the registry editor is open it would be a wise Idea to back your registry up in case you accidentally mess something up. To do this go to File -> Export and choose where to save the registry backup.
- Once you have your registry backed up you can go on and delete the keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\ProofingTools\1.0\Override\en-US
- Now try opening your Outlook or Word and try typing a word incorrectly and see if you have fixed your issue. If not, this issue could be caused by something else. Make sure you have spell checking enabled in Outlook if you are only experiencing the issue in Outlook.
Tip for success
Pay attention when you are typing. Even if you have mad skills, look up occasionally to make sure you type things correctly. Also, go back over whatever you type when it is important. Even better than that is to have someone else read over what you have typed because they may notice mistakes that you may have missed. The sooner someone notices that spell check may not be working the quicker it can be fixed, and the better you look, since you won't send out documents with words misspelled.
Installing a low profile kit for video cards
Posted by: David
What is a low profile kit?
A low profile kit is a set of brackets that are designed to let technicians install video cards that originally come with large brackets into slimline computer cases. For example, the computer that I installed this kit in for today was a Dell Optiplex 760. It was the thin desktop model which doesn't allow for normal size card brackets.
If you are confused on what I mean by brackets, that is the long metal piece that you can see from the outside part of the computer.
How do I install it?
First you have to make sure your card can fit in the computer case without the bracket. If your card is as big as the original (large) bracket then it wont fit in the box no matter how hard you try, and you shouldn't try, you will break your card.
Once you make sure your card can fit you need to take off the old bracket. For some of you first timers when you look at the bracket you think to yourself, how does this come off? Well that is very simple. The screw holes where the monitor cables plug into can unscrew from the bracket and come out. Once you take the screws out from the DVI or VGA (or other) ports on your video card you can remove the old VGA cable attached to the card if necessary and use the replacement one in the low profile kit if you got one in your kit. Align the pins properly on the video card.
Once you have the new cable attached you are ready to attach the new brackets to the card. Align the video ports on card up with the slots in the new brackets and secure them with the screws you removed from the old bracket. Once you have them secured again you are good to insert the card back into the machine.
Big time tip for success
Make sure you have space above or below your PCI (or other) slot to make sure that the second teir to the profile kit will still be in the bracket slots on the case. For example, if the PCI slot is in the top slot, you can't have a profile kit with the PCI card attached to the bottom bracket because the top bracket would not be able to attach to the case anywhere.
Times New Roman font not working
Posted by: David
Not entirely related
What is wrong?
The top or bottom half of your font appears to be missing or it is just not displaying correctly.
The quick fix
If you are in an office setting, you can browse to someone else's computer on the network and copy all of their fonts and place them into the font folder on the computer you are currently on.
If you are not in an office setting, you can download some of the core Windows fonts from THIS LINK.
Windows font folder is located at C:\Windows\Fonts\.
Once you have copied the fonts into the Windows font folder, you will probably need to restart any programs that you are experiencing the problem in.
The explenation
Windows uses fonts that are stored in a particular folder and are like other files in many aspects, and one important aspect is that they can be moved or deleted. If a font is no longer found in the folder and is trying to be used, Windows tries to replace that font with another and that doesn't always come out correctly.
Likely scenarios
You will likely see this scenario when someone tries to fool around with their font files. If someone who doesn't know what they are doing gets into their system files like this it can be bad news, just count your blessings that this was all they messed up.
Tips for success
Keep a copy of all the fonts your company, or customers use on a network drive that is backed up and just copy all of the files from this folder into your users font folder. This will overwrite any font files that are already on the computer and also place the font files for any they might be missing.
Great Plains 10 Chart Control error
Posted by: David
Great Plains 10 Chart Control error
Note: This screenshot doesn't come from my workplace. This is an image I found on the internet of Great Plains 10, so if someone from my employer sees this, don't worry - our accounting information is still on our network only.