Outlook slow switching between folders
Problem:
A delay between switching folders in inbox, which is als present when switching back to inbox from other places such as Calander and Contacts. This can be fixed by disabling hardware accelleration.
Solution:
There may be a control for this in file/options/advanced under “Graphics” or “Display”. If not, you’ll have to edit the registry.
Step 1 – open your registry. Press the windows key and type “Regedit” then press enter or click the Regedit icon, windows 7 users you can type Regedit in your start bar.
Step 2 – Browse to: COMPUTER \ HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Office \ 15.0 \ Common\ Graphics. If you don not have a “Graphics” right click on “Common” and choose “New” then “Key” and create “Graphics” (no quotes)
Step 3 – Once on the Graphics “folder” right click it and choose new DWORD (32-bit) Value
Step 4 – Give the new DWORD a Value name: DisableHardwareAcceleration and give it a Value of 1 – Click OK to save it.
NO USB mouse or keyboard
Problem:
You start up and can’t log in or do anything. Many times customers will think thier PC has frozen, but in actuallity it’s just not loading the USB mouse and keyboard drivers on boot (finds new devices but fails the driver install). You can tell this if you see ascreen saver come on or new messages still popping up in the corner.
Solution:
If it’s not finding the driver, quick solution is to point the search to the Windows\Inf\ folder (browse my computer for drivers). This should at least get you functionality.
Setup searches a predefined path on the drive, looking in .inf files to find the best match for the Plug and Play ID of the device. This path is defined in the following registry location and is set to %SystemRoot%\Inf by default:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DevicePath: REG_EXPAND_SZ:%SystemRoot%\Inf
Adding an entry with the actuall path may solve the problem her. Don’t delete the current path thoguh, add a ; and then type the path
; C:\windows\inf\
ATT Phishing scam
I received a call from a client this morning about an email from ATT that he was worried about. I asked him to forward the email to me so I could take a look at it.
This looks really good, but something doesn’t smell right. Check out that return address- that doesn’t have anything to do with ATT…and if you hover your mouse over the link itself, you can see it sends you to a site I don’t recognize AT ALL.
This email is absolutely 100% a scam. It’s based on an actual notification ATT sent out in January – they copied and pasted some of the text to make it look legit, and then changed dates (the actual email this is based on went out in January and referenced Jan 30th, not May 11th) and links and stuff to redirect you to a phishing site. Be on the lookout for these. Once the scammers find a new formula, they like to push it hard for a few months. If you see an email like this from “att“, Just delete, or call me (440-777-7881) if you have a question!
Modify the registry to deactivate Windows
Problem:
The windows activation windows keeps poping up even though windows says it’s been activated. This is frequently caused by someone using an activation crack, or by the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files courrupting. Sometimes also happens after a repair installation of windows.
Before we can legitimatly (re)activate windows we first must de-activate it.
Solution:
In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Expand SOFTWARE, and then expand Microsoft.
Expand Windows NT, and then expand CurrentVersion.
Under CurrentVersion, click WPAEvents.
In the right pane (topic area) of Registry Editor, right-click OOBETimer, and then click Modify.
Click to put the pointer in the Value data box. Then, modify any character that appears in the Value data box.
Click OK.