IT support

Problem:

No printers show up in the printer section of control panel. This is a result of the print spooler crashing. if you go in and manually restart the print spooler it runs until you try to do anything related to the printer then crashes again.

Solution:

Usually this is the result of corrupt print drivers (possible virus infection causing the corruption. Make sure to run a quick malware scan). You may need to uninstall print drivers completely – including the registry entries.

If it is a local printer (My Computer), go to the following registry keys and delete the respective entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\ Windows NT x86\ Drivers\Version-2\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\
If it is a network printer (network printer server or \\), go to the following registry keys and delete the respective and entries:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers\ LanMan Print Services\Servers\\Printers\

After the registry edit, you need to stop and restart the spooler service. At this point, you’ll be able to reinstall the printer driver correctly.

When Outlook won’t open, nine times out of ten, it’s a profile issue. You’re PST gets corrupt and Outlook just can’t open. Forunately, Outlook has a built in utility to fix just this…if you can find it.

The Utility is “Scanpst.exe” and it’s located in the C:\programfiles\Office(version number) folder. Bring up the RUN command and access it there, then point it to your outlook PST file. These are usually located either in the hidden folder “C:\Users\ (username)\AppData\Local\MicrosoftOutlook” or in an Outlook folder in your Documents folder. The initial error check is quick. Ten minuets or so, but further repairs may take hours. Be prepared.

Once done, Outlook should open normally.

Problem:

When trying to start Outlook, you recieve the error :

“Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window”

This error shows up because something has redirected or courrupted your user profile.

Solution:

Go to the Start menu. Hit run..then type the following;  Outlook.exe /resetnavpane
This clears and regenerates the Navigation Pane for the current profile

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.

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\

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.

Problem:

How to check optimal WAN MTU settings.

Solution:

The primary reason is that in most if not all cases if you send packets at 1500 they will need to be fragmented resulting in degradation of performance. I would not reccomend changing the MTU settings without first checking the optimal settings for your environment, do not just take the word of your ISP, they are making a generalized statement that covers the masses, it is not a total optomization.

Checking is easy to do. First make sure that your MTU setting is in fact 1500 or the test is compromised and will result in a number that is too low.

The command is to see the largest packet is “ping -f -l XXXX www.XXX.com” -f -l forces the ping packet size to be what you specify, any size to lage returns a reply that the packet needed to be fragmented.

-l is a lowwercase L
XXXX is mtu speeds start at 1500 and decrease in multiples of 10 (1500, 1490, 1480 etc…) until you get a ping result, then increase in multiples of 1 until you again get the reply that the packets needed to be fragmented. The highest numbet that did not have to be fragmented is your highest optimal number. I would actually suggest decreasing it by 2. So if 1464 is the highest you could send without fragmentation set the MTU to 1462.

and XXX is a website of your choosing.

Problem:

When a print job is sent to the printer, the printer will display processing job on the control panel, and will continually ramp up and down attempting to print the job. After several minutes the printer will return to ready without posting any error messages. Occasionally, after several minutes the print job will print

Solution:

This usually isn’t a roller problem as the printer WILL pick up the paper, it just takes a few minuets, but it never hurts to check. Next check the firmware. If it’s older than 04.060.7, then it is causing a fault in the fuser. This is a documented problem and the fuser needs to be replaced. In addition, the firmware needs to be upgraded to version 04.060.7 or higher to prevent this error from recurring. You can download an executable firmware upgrade utility from  :

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3558884&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3558793&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=54

Don’t forget to update the firmware to the latest version, if you haven’t already done it, to prevent the new fuser failing with the same fault.

Problem:

Internet Explorer will not start, the hourglass goes around once and nothing happens, but in Task Manager you can see the process going

Solution:

One of two things is happening; Either you havea corrupted installation, or something is interfearing with the application.

1. Try to run IE in safe mode with add-ons disabled. If this works, you have an add-on crashing the app. Go to Internet Options, Programs, Manage add-ons and start disabling add-on programs untill you find the one causing the problem.

2. Revert IE to defaults. Internet Options, advanced, and start reseting from here. This may not fully solve the problem however. If there is an outside ap conflicting with IE, you may be able to log on once and then not again. Make sure to test repeatedly.

3.Uninstall Google Desktop. Google Desktop has know issues with IE and will sometimes cause it to not start.