Archive for the ‘vista’ Category

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Installing Channel 4 On-Demand (4oD)


2007
10.25

Posted in vista | 3 Comments »

For anyone else who is trying to install 4oD on Vista, this may help… I discovered what a PITA a simple app can be even though it says it officially supports Vista, you’d think channel 4 would put together a 3-step guide at least… anyway, in order to install 4oD successfully (I’m yet to actually play anything with it, so that’ll be the next test) here’s what I had to do..

You will need admin rights on your PC or you will need the username & password of an admin account to handle the UAC prompts

  1. Go to www.4od.com, get the installer, save it on your PC.
  2. Run command prompt as administrator
  3. You should already be at c:\windows\system32 – if not, then go there
  4. type in “regsvr32 vbscript.dll” without the quotes and wait for confirmation that it happened
  5. type in “regsvr32 jscript.dll” without the quotes and wait for confirmation that it happened
  6. You can now exit the command prompt
  7. Right-click the channel4_on_demand.exe that you downloaded, and Run as administrator.
  8. That should now install correctly

It’s weird this… even though I’m logged in as a user with Administrator privileges (yeah yeah, I know I know, save it), and even though I got the UAC elevation prompt and clicked continue, I still couldn’t install the app without right-click & run as administrator…

BTW, here are the errors I got which led me to this fix…

Error 2738. Could not access VBScript run time for custom action.

Error1920.Service KService (KService) failed to start. Verify you have
sufficient privelleges to start system services

Error 2739: Could not access JavaScript runtime for custom action

Good luck…

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Vista / Outlook 2007 & Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTPS)


2007
06.19

Posted in office 2007, Outlook, vista | No Comments »

The next logical step is of course, after getting online, to get my exchange mailbox runing on my local PC (this Vista box is quite new and only turned up after I lost broadband). I thought this would’ve been nice and easy since I’d already messed about importing certs etc to get OWA to work properly. But I thought wrong.
After a fair bit of messing around, I needed to employ a couple of “tricks” to get operational.

If you’re having problems as well, then try the following method…

First, start configuring Mail as normal (via the Control Panel icon) and put in your FQDN (local) server name and user name. Go into “More settings…” and on the connection tab, check the box for Outlook Anywhere. Click the Exchange Proxy Settings button and type in the public FQDN for your Exchange server (without the /exchange) in the “Use this URL…” box. Ensure the “Connect using SSL only” & “Only connect to proxy servers…” boxes are both ticked. In the “Only connect to…” box, type in “msstd:” (without the quotes or spaces) followed by the same FQDN as above.
Tick the “On slow networks ” box.
Now, if your PC is not a domain member for any reason (mine isn’t – hey I’m at home, remember), then choose Basic Authentication instead of NTLM.
Apply & OK your way out and see if the check-name lookup works (it should result in an underlined mailbox name after prompting for credentials). If so, then you should be all set… finish the wizard and fire up Outlook, put in username and password when prompted (usually more than once) and sit back and wait for your mailbox to cache. You did choose cached mode, didn’t you?

If this didn’t work for you, then try this:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
  2. Locate and then click the following subkey:
    1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\RPC
  3. If the RPC key does not exisit, Right-click on the Outlook key and select New Key and call it RPC.
  4. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
  5. Type DefConnectOpts, and then press ENTER.
  6. Right-click DefConnectOpts, and then click Modify.
  7. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
  8. Exit Registry Editor.
  9. Close Outlook and re-open it.

Of course, if the wizard failed then start from the top after adding the registry key… and hopefully things should work as expected…

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Tether your Vista desktop / laptop with a T-Mobile MDA Vario II


2007
04.21

Posted in mobile, pocketpc, vista | No Comments »

So while connecting to the super-fast 3G HSDPA data network on my T-mobile Vario II is great, I sometimes find that I want a full-size screen and keyboard to work with. I recently found myself without normal internet access on my Vista PC and decided to see if I could use my phone as a modem (which I used to do via Bluetooth with my earlier phone, the Sony Ericsson P910i). It seems that there are a number of different “how-to” approaches around, so this is the (definitive) approach that worked for me.

First, the scenario:
PC: 32-bit (x86) Vista Ultimate.
Phone: T-Mobile MDA Vario II
Connection type: USB (My phone battery lasts only half a day anyway, so it’s nice to be able to connect without draining the battery)

Warning: you will need a working internet connection to download the bits needed to complete this connection!

Steps:

  1. On your Vista PC, install the Windows Mobile Device Center. This step may well not be necessary, but I did install it and it works for me! I couldn’t be bothered to uninstall and try without it, but you’re welcome to try it. This download is at http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/f/2/cf2e986b-015a-4f0e-92ff-75f461f6e48e/drvupdate-x86.exe and will require you to validate your copy of Windows. Run through the install and set up your device as you want to. In fact, I think this step is totally superfluous (discussed later) but I don’t want to omit it in case it isn’t. I had originally thought the WMDC was included in Vista, but it isn’t. It’s a separate download, although if you hit Microsoft Update while your WM5 device is connected, MU should push this out to you.
  2. Download and extract the USB modem drivers for your device to c:\ (or wherever). I got the driver from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=288753 (Thanks Sergey123456!). This page also has the 64-bit driver, and if the 32-bit driver is anything to go by, it should work fine.
  3. On your phone, Open up Programs -> Wireless Modem. Set connection type to USB and tap Menu-> Start
  4. Connect the Vario to the PC with a USB cable
  5. Vista will detect the new device “Generic Serial” and try to set it up. It will fail. So when it gives up and asks you what to do, point it to c:\USB_MODEM_VISTA\USB_MODEM_VISTA\USBMDM.INF
  6. It should then go and install the drivers and you should now have an entry in Device Manager under Modems called HTC USB Modem.
  7. Right-click the entry for the HTC USM Modem and go to the Advanced tab. In the Extra initialization commands field, type in the follwing: at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”general.t-mobile.uk”
  8. For some reason, my Extra initialization commands field was disabled when I first tried this, but after clicking around a bit and opening the modem properties again, it was enabled. Yipee.
  9. Save these settings and head to the annoying Network & Sharing Center.
  10. On the left pane, click Set up a connection or network.
  11. Choose set up a dial-up connection.
  12. Assuming you only have one dial-up modem in your system, it will then ask your for details. If you have more than one modem, it’ll probably ask you to choose which one you want to use!
  13. Enter *99# for the phone number, and leave the username & password fields blank.
  14. Hit Connect. (I wish they would just let you create a connection without forcing you to try to connect immediately).
  15. Cancel the connection if it’s trying to connect.
  16. On your phone, without stopping or quitting the wireless modem app, click the 3G icon in the status bar and make sure you are not currently connected (otherwise the phone will scream at you to “Please end data call first” !!).
  17. On the PC, double-click the connection you just created to connect. I would go into connection properties and un-check the “Prompt for phone number” and “Prompt for username” boxes so that it connects without hassling me any more.
  18. That’s it!! You should be online! If you’re not, then… try Google.

Mine usually shows a connection speed of 230kbps, which is nowhere near the 1.8mbps I have seen in broadband speed tests from my phone directly, but I’m writing this post via that connection and it’s pretty usable!

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The quickest install yet…


2007
04.01

Posted in computers, technology, vista | No Comments »

Just had to get this quickie in… writing this post from my new Vista PC, which had to be THE QUICKEST operating system install I’ve ever done…

Maybe it’s got something to do with Vista. But I doubt it, since the last MS OS fit on a CD and this one needs a DVD.. and this is Vista Ultimate, so it’s got all the bells n whistles.

So it’s probably got more to do with the new tin. It’s a Dell Precision 390, Core 2 Duo E6600, 2Gb memory, SATA II drives and basically seems to really rip it up! :-) I’m dreading turning on the laptop now… :-)