Are you getting an error that says rundll32.exe can’t open? Are you completely unable to run any programs, even after rebooting your Windows XP PC?

You can download a registry edit file from http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm that will fix this problem. I have used this registry fix a few times and it has never failed me. Though I don’t want you to have this problem, I hope this fixes it for you if you do.

Tim

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As you may know, SBS 2008 always wants to be the DHCP server in a domain. Not a problem, right? Well, if you have the Linksys WRTU54G-TM router from T-Mobile, it is a problem.

The issue is that even though you can go into the network setup on the router and disable DHCP, it never stops the service. This means that you now have two DHCP servers on one network giving conflicting addresses.

The Linksys WRTU54G-TM router from T-Mobile is absolutely necessary if you have “T-Mobile @Home“ phone service. This service allows you to connect a standard land-line phone to the router and have a pseudo-landline through T-Mobile. You have to put a SIM card in the router and as other routers don’t accept SIM cards, this is the only one that you can use with this service.

So my client needed this router AND he needed his new SBS server. Though it is possible to have the SBS stop serving DHCP, it isn’t recommended. Here is how I solved the problem of keeping the router for my client’s phone service while installing a new router for the network gateway.

1. I got him a new router to set up as the default gateway for the network and set the IP Subnet to 192.168.0.x.
2. I connected the server and all office computers to this router.
3. I then connected the old router, WRTU54G-TM, behind the new one and set it up with a different IP Subnet of 192.168.1.x.

This allowed both routers to be active while the primary network and its computers received their DHCP through the server. The phone service still worked and at the end of the day, everyone was happy. And next time I see a sys WRTU54G-TM, I’ll know exactly how to handle it. If I can’t remove it, I’ll simply make it subservient to another router.

Tim

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Have you had either your Windows Vista computer or your SBS (Small Business Server) 2008 box lose their internet connection after you reboot? This recently happened to me after I installed SBS 2008 at a client’s location. It is easy to diagnose and the fix is relatively simple if you understand how to edit the registry on your computer.

Step 1: The Diagnosis:

1. Click on the “START” button and in the small box at the bottom, type “CMD” without the quotes.
2. A black box will appear with a blinking cursor. Type “ipconfig /all” and hit “Enter”.
3. You will see a lot of text that may look completely foreign to you.
4. Look the the row that says “Default Gateway”, if it is blank, then continue on to the “The Fix” section. If the “Default Gateway” is not blank, there is another problem and the fix below will not help you.

Step 2: The Fix:

1. Close out of the black box by typing “Exit” and hitting “Enter”.
2. Click on the “START” button and in the small box at the bottom, type “regedt32″ without the quotes.
3. The registry Editor will appear and you need to navigate to HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Tcpip/Parameters/Interfaces/
4. Here you’ll need to select the CLSID of your networkadapter where you change the settings. You’ll probably recognize it by looking at the value IPAddress that will have the IP of this adapter.
5. Open the value “DefaultGateway” by double-clicking it.
6. You will see a list of all the gateways that disappeared! ( in your case it may only be one) Very likely, the first line will be empty. I’m not sure, how this little flaw can make such a big problem.
7. Manually remove this first empty line, click OK and reboot your system everything should be working fine again.

Thanks to Ilja Herlein at http://www.netsetman.com/support/viewtopic.php?pid=832#p832 for the direction on how to fix this issue. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me!

Tim

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How much personal information do you have online? Have you ever thought about that question? Have you ever googled your own name? How about the different variations of your name, have you googled them? Take this story that just happened to me as an example of how personal information and data can end up online without your knowledge or permission.

Today I received an email from, Google Alerts telling me that my name had popped up in a new web page. This happens occasionally since I am on Twitter, Facebook and I have my own blog (this one) so I didn’t think it was anything strange. However once I read the email (pictured below), I had to check it out.

A day or 2 earlier I had written a letter of recommendation for a friend and thought nothing more about it. Then I get the email that you see above and I had to see what it was talking about. Apparently the friend needed to convert the Microsoft Word file to an Adobe Acrobat file and used the website http://www.scribd.com/ to do so. No big deal, right? Well, the website made the letter public and Google had searched it and found my name. This is why I was alerted. So I called my friend to ask her about it and apparently her resume as well as 2 more letters of recommendation were posted online as well. Thanks to Google Alerts, we were spared the embarrassment of having somebody else find it.

So, how much personal data do you have online? Have you ever Googled your own name? You should. And if I were you, I would set up alerts for the different variations of your name. That way, any time something new is added, you’ll know about it.

Setting up your alerts is easy. You don’t even have to log in or create a new account.

1. Go to Google Alerts.
2. Enter the text that you want alerts for.
3. Choose comprehensive.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Click on “Create Alert”.
6. Google will send an email to the address that you enter. Open that email and click on the link under “Verify this Google Alert request”.
7. You’re done.

Keeping up to date with your information online is a great way to reduce embarrassment and credit fraud.

Thank you for reading,
Tim

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If you’re having problems updating Avira Antivir Personal Edition (FREE antivirus software) it is quite probably because your computer, router, or ISP (Internet Service Provider) don’t fully support IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) yet. If you are using Avira as your antivirus software and want a better method of updating your antivirus software automatically, follow these instructions…

1. Go to to “START” button and click on “RUN”.
2. Type “%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc” and hit “OK”
3. Open the hosts file with Notepad.
4. Copy the 2 lines below and paste it to the last line at the hosts file. Save the file.
   
   2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.com
   2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.net

The contents of the Hosts file should now look like this:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
127.0.0.1       localhost
2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.com
2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.net

Thank you for reading,
Tim

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Has your email stopped going out? Can you receive but not send? Do you have Verizon as your Internet Service Provider? Here is the explanation and fix for it.

Verizon, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to start blocking TCP Port #25 on all home and some business accounts.If you use a 3rd party email system (not verizon’s email, that still works) they are going to block the most common port over which people send out email.

What this means is that if you have your email hosted by another service, say godaddy.com or 1and1.com and use Verizon as your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you can still receive mail but you won’t be able to send it. Thanks for the warning, Verizon!

How to get around this issue…

1. Use Verizon’t email. A trick to get you at least somewhat locked into staying with their service…
2. Switch your Verizon account to a Business account with a Static IP Address. This is, of course, more expensive than what you currently have.
3. Use your email host’s webmail. No, Outlook, Outlook Express, and Thunderbird will not work.
4. Switch the port number from 25 to 587 and hope that your email host has that port open. Click here for directions on how to switch Outlook from port 25 to 587.
5. You can click HERE to read Verizon’s instructions on how to change other programs to port 587.

And just in case you don’t believe me that Verizon is blocking this essential email port, just click HERE and read what they had to say.

Tim Biden

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If you have earthlink.net for your email provider and suddenly you can receive email but not send, I think I have the solution for you.

I am assuming that you have already checked your username and password as well as your server settings to be certain that they are correct.

If after checking these settings, you still can’t send your email, check your SMTP port settings.

From the Email Account settings page,

1. Click the More Settings button.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Check the contents of the Outgoing mail (SMTP) field. If it is not 587, delete the contents and type 587.
4. Click the OK button.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Click the Finish button.

This should solve your problem.

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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I’m certain that we have all seen them, software programs that promise to have your PC “Running just Like New”. I’ve seen many people use them and most have to admit that the programs did little or nothing to speed up their computer. In some cases these programs have even crashed their computers.

What these programs typically do is remove orphaned or invalid registry entries. This will usually shrink the registry by 150-800 entries. Sounds good right? Well when you consider that the registry is made up of many thousands of entries, removing a few hundred really isn’t that impressive. After they remove the orphaned entries, they may compress or compact the registry, moving entries to make the file size smaller.

Will these processes speed up your computer? Yes, a little. What these programs all fail to take into consideration is how many programs are running on startup. The more programs you have running at once, the less processing power and memory your computer can give to the more important programs and processes.

Lets look at a computer as if it were a person… If you are trying to write a research paper, you need to put all of your attention into writing the paper, right? Well, lets add into the mix a stereo playing distracting music, a dog barking, a cluttered desk and your neighbor’s baby screaming. None of them are really requiring your attention but your mind has to bounce around a bit more than it should to work on your research paper. Just think about how much more you could accomplish if you removed the screaming baby, barking dog, cleaned up your desk and put on more soothing music. This is what you really need to do in order to speed up your computer. “So how do I speed up my slow Computer?” I’m glad you asked, here are a few simple steps!

• Make sure your computer has enough RAM (memory)
• For Windows 2000 and XP, you should have a minimum of 512MB.
• For Windows Vista and Windows 7 I recommend having a minimum of 2 GB.
• Remember, more is always better!

** Warning: Editing the registry can be dangerous and Biden PC does not warrant any changes that you make.**

**If you  do not feel comfortable doing this, Biden PC can do it for you for the small fee of $15.00**

• Download Autoruns from Microsoft. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
• Unzip the file and run autoruns.exe.
• Look at the bottom left corner of the window. Don’t do anything until is says “Ready”.
• Once it says “Ready”, click on the “Logon” tab. That is all we are going to concern ourselves with.
• Find the line below “Explorer.exe” and start unchecking boxes. DO NOT UNCHECK “Explorer.exe” OR ANYTHING ABOVE IT.
• Most things here can be disabled. Things like iTunes, QuickTime, Adobe, Google Update… These can all be disabled.
• Do not disable your Antivirus (Norton/Symantec, McAfee, Avira, AVG, CA…)
• Do not disable “cftmon.exe”

Once you have disabled what you feel comfortable disabling from the system startup, reboot your computer and enjoy how much faster it is. Feel free to share this information or like with your friends.

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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If you have Outlook 2007 connecting to Exchange 2007 or SBS 2008 and have been seeing the extremely persistent “Disconnected” button in the bottom right hand corner of your exchange, I think have the fix for you.

You can download the registry fix HERE or go to the PC that has the problem and edit the registry yourself.

** Warning: Editing the registry can be dangerous and Biden PC does not warrant any changes that you make.**

Navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\RPC” and if the “RPC” key doesn’t exist, create it.
Add or edit DWORD value: “DefConnectOpts” and make it “0″

Thanks lesgetdown! I appreciate the help!

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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Are you running Quickbooks on Windows PCs while a Linux domain and file server holds the data files? Do you get an error code -6190 -82? Let me tell you how I fixed this problem on a client’s server. I fully admit that I am no Linux expert but I am learning.

The users that were logged in to the server had admin access but only the user that owned the file was able to access it. All others were given the -6190 -82 error code. I tried everything my non-Linux mind could think of. I had them run QuickBooks from a batch file that removed the “Read Only” attribute. I did this, I did that.

What I finally did to fix the issue was going into the server and see what user group the necessary users belonged to. I then changed the owner setting of the QB Data files to that group.

**ADDITION** I had to go back and I saw that the .TLG file permissions had changed on the server. This sent me searching for why they would change and how to stop it… After testing, changing, testing, changing and retesting, I believe I have the complete solution to the problem.

1. Put all users who need QuickBooks access in 1 user group.
2. Make that group the owner of your .QBW and .TLG file with “Read & Write” permissions.
3. On each users desktop (at least the ones who backup the QuickBooks file), set the program NOT to verify the backup data.
4. Viola. The problem has been solved.

So what is the reason for this??? You can set the permissions on the .TLG file but if you verify the backup data in QuickBooks it creates a new .TLG file with the same name. That causes the permissions to be reset. So backing up without verifying saves the permissions and allows everyone to use the files. **END ADDITION**

Intuit says they don’t support Linux unless you pay for their $3000.00 Enterprise Solutions package. Well, this trick might just save you $3000.00. Feel free to send me a check if you find this useful… Just kidding.

Tim Biden

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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