Excel 2007 takes a long time to open files

June 13, 2011
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So today I came across an odd problem where excel 2007 was taking anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to open files.  The weird thing was that if the excel program was already open it would open up the files quickly, so I knew it had to be excel 2007 and not the files.  So after digging around the internet and trying mutliple things I came across the solution.  Its an easy fix.

Perform the following steps below. 

1.      Click on Start and go to settings and click on Control Panel.

2.      Double click on Folder Options and select File Types tab.

3.      Select XLS file type extension and click on Advanced.

4.      Highlight Open under actions and click Edit.

 In the dialog box that appears you need to make two adjustments:

1) At the end of the line after /e append a space character followed by “%1” (including the quotes)

2) Uncheck “Use DDE”.

3) Now Click OK three times to close out all the windows.

Now try and open up one of your excel files and it should open up quickly.

Cannot Open your Default e-mail Folders, You must connect to microsoft exchange with the current user profile before you can synchronize your folders with your offline folder file

April 21, 2011
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I came across this error message today on a user using outlook 2007.  After some searching and trying a couple of things I was able to figure out the solution to this error message.  Here is what you need to do.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK. 
2. Locate and then click the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\RPC 
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. 
4. Type DefConnectOpts, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DefConnectOpts, and then click Modify. 
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.

Now open outlook back up and you should be able to access your emails again.  This was a tricky little error and was solved with a quick edit of the registry.  Now if I could only figure out why this happened or what causes this. 🙂

the function you are attempting to run contains macros or content that requires macro language support

April 11, 2011
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Came across this error today after installing adobe professional on a laptop.  When the user opened up word it came up with this error message.  It’s easy to fix and all you need to do is:

1) Open the Control Panel, double-click Programs &
Features, find and select Office 2007 or Office 2003 (depending on whats installed on your computer)

2) Click on the Change button. Chose Add or Remove
Features. From the list, expand Office Shared Features, click on the little
arrow attached to Visual Basic for Applications and select the Run from My
Computer Option.

3) Click Continue. Setup will then install the VBA code that
you need. Note: You may need to put your installation CD so it can copy the necessary files.

Now when you open up Word this error will not appear and you should be all set.

Reset Firefox Settings

March 30, 2011
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Here is a quick tip on how to reset your Firefox settings.  If your Firefox has been crashing or not acting right this is a great way to restore everything back to the orginal default settings.

1. 

1. Start Mozilla Firefox in Safe Mode.

Start -> All Programs -> Mozilla Firefox -> Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode)

2. Now on the windows that pops up select “Reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults” and click on makes changes and restart. (See screenshot below)

4. Now Firefox will open back up with its default settings and you should be OK from here. 

Hope this helps as this is a great little tip to get your Firefox working properly again.

Error 80070002 when upgrading to Windows Vista SP1

March 18, 2011
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This one took me a couple of hours to figure out and did a lot of searching to finally get windows vista sp1 to install on a laptop I was working on.  Below are the steps I did to resolve this PITA issue. 🙂  I hope this helps someone out there.

1. Uninstall any anti virus program you have installed.

2. Click on start -> run and type in msconfig –  Then select the diagnostic startup option. Reboot computer.

3. Run the Readiness tool.  You can download it from here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=0435684b-8d12-4028-9cb0-b2903257f1fd&displaylang=en

4. Click on start ->run and type in cmd – Then in the command box that opens up type cd \ and then type sfc /scannow

5. After the scan runs (may take awhile) then type in takeown /F %windir%\winsxs\backup /r /d y

then type in cacls %windir%\winsxs\backup /g administrators:f

then type exit

6. Now go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bb738089 and download windows vista sp1. Depending on the version of vista you have you’ll either download the 32 bit version (x86) or the 64 bit (x64) one.  Make sure you download the stand-alone versions. If you don’t know which version of vista you have it’s easy to find out.  Right click on my computer and choose properties.  You’ll find a line called “system type” and it will say 32 or 64 bit operation system.

7. Now run vista sp1 that you downloaded.  This could take an hour to install so be patient.

8. Once it’s installed and you have rebooted and everything is working now click  on start -> run and type in msconfig.  Now select “normal startup” and reboot your computer. 

9. Now that you have your computer updated with sp1 now would be a good time to get all the other windows updates you need.  So click on start go to control panel and select windows update. click on check for updates and install any updates it finds.  You may have to restart and do this process several times but keep doing it till you get a message saying there are no updates available.

10. Now that you have a fully updated computer and latest service packs you need to install your anti virus program back on.  DONE!

I know it seems like a lot of things to do and will take sometime (the one i worked on took like 4 hours) but you’ll have an updated windows vista computer and will have peace of mind knowing you have all the security updates needed. If you have any problems feel free to leave a comment and i’ll do my best to help.  Good luck!