Random Computer Problems and Resolutions

'Choose the program you want to open this file' prompt on startup

2011-04-17T12:34:00.004+12:00

Problem
Receiving a Choose the program you want to use to open this file prompt every time the computer starts (Windows 7)

Symptoms
If you choose notepad to open the file with you get something similar to this:
===========================================================================
Interface List
15...00 24 2c b5 37 3a ......Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
11...00 23 ae 2a 00 0e ......Intel(R) 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1
21...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
19...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
13...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
===========================================================================

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
None
Persistent Routes:
None

IPv6 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
None
Persistent Routes:
None

Solution
Here are the steps I performed to resolve this issue:

1.) At startup, when prompted -- choose to open the file with notepad.
2.) To get the location of of the file choose File --> Save As -- this will show you the location where the file is currently located. (for me it was C:\Users\)
3.) Navigate to this location and delete the file

OTA Stock Android 2.2 on Telstra HTC Desire Without Rooting

2010-11-27T19:50:00.005+13:00

Problem
I have the Telstra HTC Desire and want to upgrade to Android 2.2 without all the Telstra Apps.

Solution
Here are the steps I performed on the Telstra A8183 Desire (Note: I am using it on the Telecom New Zealand XT Network)

1.) If not already done, Install HTC Sync and restart your computer (Yes you actually do have to restart or it wont work)
2.) Format the microSD card to FAT32 format (quick format is OK).
3.) Put the microSD card in your device and boot it.
4.) Launch GoldCard Tool (Right Click and run as Admin if needed)
5.) Connect Android device to USB and enable USB Debugging (Settings --> Applications --> Developer --> Enable USB Debugging)
6.) Click 'Get CID' (If MMC1 fails try MMC0)
7.) Navigate to http://psas.revskills.de/?q=goldcard, enter the CID number from Goldcard Tool and create your Goldcard image, which will be e-mailed to you.
8.) Enable USB Mass Storage on the Desire if its not on already
9.) Click 'Refresh' and select your microSD card in the drop down menu.
10.) Click 'Load GoldCard.img' and open the .img file you got by email.
11.) Click 'Patch MMC'
12.) Download and run RUU_Bravo_HTC_WWE_1.21.405.2_Radio_32.36.00.28U_4. 06.00.02_2_release_126984_signed.exe
13.) Once the phone is flashed, download OTA_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.09.405.8-1.21.405.2_release4dua3bcrut4wrv30.zip and rename it to update.zip
14.) Copy it to your Goldcard and power off the phone
15.) Turn on the phone by pressing the Down arrow Key and the Power Button This will take you to a menu. Using the volume down button to select recovery mode and press the power button.
16.) When you see the image of the phone with an Exclamation mark press the volume up and the power button and select install the contents from update.zip

Transcend USB Drive Fix

2010-11-27T19:43:00.006+13:00

I was given a 16GB USB flash drive today that wasn't working:

Symptoms
- When plugged in in XP it would show up in My Computer but when you click on it it would say 'Drive not initialized'
- Right click Format fails
- In XP Disk Management it does not show the drive size or allow you to initialize it
- When plugged into Windows 7 it appears in Disk Management but same as with XP you are unable to do anything but change drive letters and path
- when formatting from cmd you receive:

C:\Windows\system32>format j:

Insert new disk for drive J:
and press ENTER when ready...
Cannot open volume for direct access.

C:\Windows\system32>dir j:
The device is not ready.

Troubleshooting and Resolution
1.) I downloaded the HP USB Disk Key recovery application and found that when attempting to use this you get a:

C:\DriveKey>hpusbf j:

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Version 1.00.012 (11/13/2003)
Copyright (c) 2003 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

The type of the current file system is RAW.

WARNING! ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE J: (Generic USB Flash Disk 7.76) WILL BE LOST!
Are you really sure that you want to proceed with Format (Y/N)? y

***ERROR*** IOCTL_DISK_GET_DRIVE_GEOMETRY: The device is not ready.

2.) Finally I went over to the Transcend website (the USB key was a 16GB V10 series Transcend drive) and downloaded their Online recovery tool (I don't know why they call it online -- it runs off-line)
- Using this tool I was able to run a "Repair drive & erase all
- This appears to have resolved the problem

Note: With flash drives there are a myriad of reasons that can break or stop working. The fix detailed above is only to fix the problem described by the symptoms above

Validation Failed for (Subnet Mask) Error on Thompson Modems

2010-11-27T18:47:00.012+13:00

Problem
On some models of Thompson DSL routers there is a known but that prevents an admin from changing either the Default IP address or the DHCP Pool addresses using the Web User Interface.

Solution
One way to get around this is to manually edit the router's configuration file. To do this:

1.) Navigate to the Save/Restore configuration page (in my Thompson TG585v7 this is located under Front Page --> Configuration --> Save or Restore Configuration.

2.) Click the Backup Configuration Now... button and it will prompt you to choose a location to save the user.ini configuration file.

3.) Open up the configuration file and do a search for the router's IP address:

ipadd intf=LocalNetwork addr=192.168.1.254/24 addroute=enabled

Here you can edit the IP to the value you desire

4.) Following this, Search for the DHCP Pool Settings:
pool config name=LAN_private state=enabled intf=LocalNetwork

poolstart=192.168.1.64 poolend=192.168.1.253 netmask=24 gateway=192.168.1.254

leasetime=86400
Here you can change the Start Address, End Address, Subnet mask and the Default gateway settings.

5.) Once the edits are complete save the file as a new INI file (so you still have a backup of the original config) then, import it back into the router using the Restore Configuration Section on the same page in Step 2 .

Note: in some cases you may need to power cycle the modem for the changes to take effect.

Adding Search Providers in IE7

2007-06-23T00:36:00.000+12:00

Problem
When you attempt to add a search provider in IE7 you receive the following error:
Error: The search provider could not be installed. This might have happened
because:
- A required file could not be downloaded;
- The website is unavailable;
- You are not connected to the Internet;
You might want to try again later.

Solution
This seems to occur if UAC is enabled. To work around it, right click the IE7 Icon on the quick launch bar and choose Run as administrator, then re-attempt to add the search provider.

Hybrid Sleep Issues with Vista

2007-06-23T00:05:00.001+12:00

Problem
When Vista resumes from Hybrid Sleep the USB Keyboard, Mouse and other USB devices no longer work. Sometimes you get an Unrecognized USB device or a USB hub failure system notification.

Solution
This seems to occur as a result of installing the KB930178 hotfix from Microsoft (comes down via Windows update). As of yet I have not found a way to fix the problem other than to uninstall the hotfix.

IE7 Searchbar YouTube Downloader

2007-06-20T23:18:00.000+12:00

While there are several add-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox as well as sites like KeepVid that offer better alternatives, I'm offering up yet another method of downloading YouTube videos I recently discovered: A YouTube Search Provider.

To install the search provider follow this link

Once installed, simply copy the video ID of a YouTube Video and paste it into the search bar.

As an example the video ID of this YouTube video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4bMM73-qHo) is t4bMM73-qHo. Pasting that into the IE Searchbar and then choosing YouTube Video Downloader (if its not already selected) will start the download.

The videos will need to have the .flv file extension added to their file names so they can be played (VLC or FLV player should play them fine).

What's so special about this?
Well, this particular method will work around a proxy that is blocking DNS entries (such as youtube.com).

Why's that?
This is because it uses the direct IP address of rd.cache.l.google.com (most proxies wont block Google.com)

But why not use YouTube's IP address?
Well that works, however it redirects you to another YouTube server that's hosting the specific video (http://lax-v172.lax.youtube.com/ for example). This is a problem, because youtube is in the DNS name (the site will therefore be blocked). Sure you could then go and nslookup the address of that server, then substitute in the relevant IP and the video would download but, that's rather time consuming.

How is this a Vista Problem or Resolution?
Ok, you've got me -- It isin't. I just didn't have any other place to publish this to :(

Vista and FlashGet

2007-06-20T22:47:00.000+12:00

Problem
FlashGet causes instabilities in Windows Vista. This seem to be related to the jcatch.dll BHO loaded in Internet Explorer 7. Symptoms include:

Inability to right click in IE- Inability to launch additional applications (QuickTime for example throws up a Buffer overflow error -- most other applications open then instantly quit)
Error messages and dialog boxes (such as save picture only half open -- the window appears but no options appear in it)
New tabs don't load sites- Folders don't completely open (the window comes up but the folder contents aren't loaded)

All these can be solved by closing several tabs in IE or closing IE altogether

Solution
If you want to continue using FlashGet then simply rename or delete jcatch.dll. (in the FlashGet program files folder -- this will disable the Right click download with FlashGet functionality however).

Additionally, you can try using the classic version of FlashGet which doesn't seem to cause the problem. At the time of writing the bug still persisted in the latest version of FlashGet (1.8.8.1010)

PowerDVD & Vista

2007-03-05T19:27:00.000+13:00

Problem: Windows Media Center won't play certain types of videos (In my case XViD). It displays thumbnails of the videos but, when you attempt to play one it lags for a while then brings up a missing codec error.

Additionally every time you try and play one of these video files in Windows Media player, the program goes out to the net and tries and find a codec (usually this won’t be noticeable however if you are behind a web proxy with authentication then you will be prompted for your credentials) -- In my case its codec search fails -- but the video then plays fine (The latest version of XViD is already installed so it should)

Solution: The problem here seems to be PowerDVD - Un-installing it fixes both issues. Before uninstalling however you should try applying this patch from Cyberlink.

IE7 and IMDB's New Look

2007-03-05T14:46:00.000+13:00

Problem: IE7 renders IMDB pages (particularly the movie ones) reeeeally bad. This problem also applies to users of Internet Explorer 7 on other version of windows.

Solution: This seems to be the result of Ad blocking software. I was the using the IE7Pro addon and upon disabling it the problem was instantly fixed. However, if you are using IE7Pro its probably a better idea to ad *imdb.com* to your whitelist instead.

Update: This bug has now been fixed in later versions of IE7pro

Adding G-Mail as the Default Mail Client

2007-01-10T19:36:00.000+13:00

Problem:
G-Mail is not listed under the E-mail link: in the properties of the Start task bar.

Solution:
1.) Choose an Icon (*.ico file) to use for the E-Mail link in the Start Menu -- I downloaded one from here and rename it to Gmail-stamp.ico
2.) Place the Icon in your Windows Folder (usually C:\Windows\)
3.) Download and install Google Notifier from here (its up to you if you choose to run it at startup -- you dont have to)
4.) Download GmailVista.reg and import it into the registry
5.) Right click the clock in the system notification area and choose properties. Navigate to the Start Menu tab and click Customize under the Show on Start Menu section select G-Mail from the E-mail link: list.

To restore Windows Mail as the default Client you can use DeleteGmailVista.reg

Installing Networked Printers - Print Monitor is Unknown Error

2006-12-31T14:15:00.000+13:00

Problem:
When installing a networked printer (in my case the Canon PiXIMA iP3000) you recieve a The Specified Print Monitor is Unknown error.

Solution:
While i'm not sure if this will work for everyone this is what fixed the problem for me.
1.) Enable UAC (Go into the control panel and type UAC in the search bar then follow through the 'wizard') -- restart your computer when prompted
2.) Install the printer
3.) Disable UAC

Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader 8

2006-12-31T13:52:00.000+13:00

Problem:
Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 won't install on Vista

Solution:
1.) Run the Acrobat Reader 8 setup file (AdbeRdr80_en_US)
2.) When prompted with the Open File - Security Warning dialog box asking you if you want to run this file?, Hit Start and type %userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\Netopsystems\temp\
3.) Copy the Adobe Reader 8.0 folder to a destination of your choice.
4.) Run AcroRead.msi to install Acrobat Reader 8 without errors

Update: Adobe has now released Acrobat Reader 8.1 which is Vista compatible

Nero 7 & COM Surrogate errors

2006-12-31T13:30:00.000+13:00

Problem:
After Installing Nero 7 you start frequently seeing COM Surrogate has encountered a problem and needs to close errors.

Solution:
1.) Download and run the Direct Show Filter Manager from here
2.) Arrange the filters by company by clicking the Company column and scroll down to the filters by Nero AG
3.) Set all the filters that are not already red to 0x00200000 (double click the filter you wish to set, type 00200000 in the Filter merit textbox, click Set new merit, then close the dialog box. Repeat this for the other Nero AG codecs)
4.) Restart your computer

Update: Ahead has since updated Nero to version 7.7.5.1 which solves this issue. The update can be download from http://www.ahead.de