Restore Offline Folder - Dirty Restore

Situation: A customer had many files in his My Documents which was set to synchronize with his Windows server using Offline Files. Windows crashed, we could not get the existing files back nor from the server nor from the computer.

For many of the files, the only copy was on the hard drive. But with offline files, it does not store them in their naitive format, it is some compressed format in the %SYSTEMROOT%\CSC directory.

The solution consit of using CSCCMD command to forcably remove local copies of offline files to network shares that no longer exist. We thought, maybe the same program can extract these files too... and it works.

You need to download version 1.1 of CSCCMD.EXE!

• Official MS Location requires contacting MPSS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884739
• Alternate location: not available

Use a working computer with the same version and service pack level of Windows XP.

Copy the %SYSTEMROOT%\CSC directory contents from the old hard drive to the same location on the working computer.

Open a command prompt and:

1. Type csccmd /enable
2. Create a directory, for example D:\Recover
3. Type csccmd /extract /target:D:\Recover /recurse
4. The files will be extracted from their compressed offline files format back to their original format!

The Add-in "Outlook Scan" (...\Scanotlk.dll) cannot be loaded and has been disabled by Outlook

Yesterday I uninstalled McAfee VirusScan Enterprise v8.5.1 from my development sandbox and each time I open Microsoft Outlook 2007 I receive the following dialog:

---------------------------
Microsoft Office Outlook
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The Add-in "Outlook Scan" (C:\Program Files\McAfee\VirusScan Enterprise\Scanotlk.dll) cannot be loaded and has been disabled by Outlook. Please contact the Add-in manufacturer for an update. If no update is available, please uninstall the Add-in.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

How to solve this?

Delete the file EXTEND.DAT from the folder %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\ and start Microsoft Outlook 2007.

What is EXTEND.DAT?

Extension register themselves in the registry. The Outlook client reads the registry information only once for an extension, and for performance reasons, transfers it to an internal cache. This internal cache is the EXTEND.DAT file, located in the Windows directory. Outlook uses the EXTEND.DAT file to record paths to DLLs for all extensions loaded into Outlook. The first time you begin an Outlook session, or any time after an extension is installed, uninstalled, or upgraded, EXTEND.DAT will be rewritten with the new DLL paths.

"Please wait while domain list is being created..." won't diappear

You may see this error message pop up in a dialog box while trying to login, specifically when you try and change the domain. To get the box to go away, press CTRL-ALT-DEL. To remove the problem entirely, make sure that your DNS is configured properly, by pointing the DNS servers to the domain controller for your network

VIA Mini-ITX serial ports issues

By default, the voltage for the additional serial ports (beyond COM 1) are configured for 5V instead of 12V. There is a jumper setting to adjust the voltage.

HP printer with DOT4 on terminal client does not create a redirected printer in Terminal Server

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302361

On-Hold Marketing

I did some research and came up with these vendors:

1. www.boredwaiting.com
2. www.audpro.com
3. www.clientsonhold.co.uk

The best of three was Audio Productions.

Code 39 Error with DVD/CD-ROM drives in Windows XP or Vista

1. Close all open programs
2. Click on Start, Run, and type REGEDIT and press Enter
3. Click on the plus signs (+) next to the following folders HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
4. This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.
5. UpperFilters
6. LowerFilters
7. UpperFilters.bak
8. LowerFilters.bak
9. If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete
10. After deleting the keys, close the Registry Editor
11. Reboot your computer
12. Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned. You may also want to open Device Manager and verify that the yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone.