Ramblings, ideas, problems, and solutions

Category: Windows Vista

  • Fixing “The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship”

    When working in a corporate environment with Active Directory, you may, from time to time, encounter computers that users cannot log on to, as they receive an error message saying:  

  • A better way to see trends

    An old joke says that there are three kinds of lies; black lies, white lies and the internal polling data of political parties. The latter example is typically statistics, and while statistics can be presented in such a way as to prove almost anything, raw, unprocessed statistics are a great tool.   One of my […]

  • Set default CapsLock, NumLock and ScrollLock state

    Lately, I’ve been annoyed that a few of the computers I’ve set up have had NumLock on after each and every boot. The problem lies somewhere in the installation scripts, I’m sure, but as I have no power over those scripts, all I can do, is fix the problem whenever I spot it.  

  • Outlook 2007: "Cannot open the Outlook window"

    I recently had a user drop by and ask me about an odd error he was seeing when starting Microsoft Outlook. The error looked like this:     Looking about on the internet, I couldn’t find a lot of help, and enlisted the assistance of a friend of mine. After some trial and error, we […]

  • Disabling IPv6 or running IPv6/IPv4

    If you’re running Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 with DHCP, you’ll be likely to encounter problems if you don’t set up IPv6 properly. The fix is of course to set up IPv6 properly on the server, but there are a few workarounds if you can’t do that. You can’t uninstall IPv6, but you can, […]

  • Find the DiskCleanup utility easily

    I’m sure you know the problem: you’ve used someone elses computer, and want to remove your traces. One of the easiest ways of doing that is to use the DiskCleanup utility, however locating it isn’t exactly the easiest thing.   Luckily, it’s pretty simple to initiate the utility from the Run dialog; simply enter the […]

  • Removing the File Association Web Service Dialog

    I’m often annoyed by this dialog box when I open unassociated filetypes:

  • Windows Vista SP1 – First impressions

    So, I finally bought a new computer. It’s a pretty smooth bit of kit if I might say so. It’s a HTPC, with a 3GHz CPU and 4GB RAM. It also runs Windows Vista Ultimate, and is my first real day-to-day encounter with said OS.   The computer arrived at my place a little more […]