John Dolan, Viant Solutions

Quick Tip - Paste Special

Knowing how to use "Paste Special" can be a great time saver when pasting content from one document to another.  By selecting "Paste Special" and then choosing the "Unformatted Text" option, you can remove all formatting from the content you are pasting so that what is pasted assumes the formatting of your current document.  This is especially useful when pasting information from the Web into a Word Document.  The hotkey for "Paste Special" is <Ctrl> <Alt> <V>.

Outlook 2007 Performance Issues Resolved!

I've been a huge fan of Microsoft Outlook 2007.  The changes from Outlook 2003 aren't overwhelming, but there are nice additions such as Integrated Search, the To-Do Bar and including Auto-Preview for attachments in the Reading-Pane.  I've also been a huge fan of Outlook's integration with SharePoint which is available in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. 

One issue I have had with Outlook 2007 is the frequent freezes during the send/receive process (especially when work remotely).  Microsoft is in the process of releasing SP2 for Microsoft Office which will include a fix for this performance issue.  However, we don't have to wait for Office 2007 SP2 to get the fix!  Microsoft has released the hotfix for Outlook performance issues that can be downloaded here.  The patch requires a password which is: IBLyKz[k

If you are a Viant customer and would like for us to assist you with this installation, just give us a call or shoot us an email and we will be glad to take care of this for you.  If you are not a Viant customer but would like to here about how we may be able to serve your organization, give me a call at 678-889-6089 x101 and I'll be glad to talk with you about our service offerings.

Troubleshooting Entourage Sync Issues

Below are a few quick steps to try if Entourage stops behaving properly (e.g. fails to sync, creates duplicate items, etc).  This is by no means an exhaustive list, but will resolve a large number of issues.

1. Update Office:  There have been a number of updates for Office that address a number of performance issues.  Using the automatic update feature in Office ensure you’re fully up to date.
2. Reset Cache:  In Entourage, right click on your account name in the Folder List on left column.  Select Properties and then click the “Empty Cache”  This will remove all items from Entourage and it will resync with the server from scratch.
3. Rebuild Database:  Hold Option Key while starting Entourage.  Run database repair utility.

Excel 2007 Opens Very Slowly

Microsoft Excel 2007 Opens Very Slowly

Extended title:  Microsoft Office 2007 or Excel 2007 opens very slowly when I click on an icon to open a document.

A client was having extreme delays when opening Excel 2007 documents on all of their computers.  My search led me to a two part solution.  The second part came from this blog.

First, check the XLStart menu under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\XLSTART.  We had PDFMaker.xla which was causing some issues.

Next try the following.  This made the largest performance improvement.

      1)      Open Windows Explorer and go to Tools -> Options and then select the “File Types” tab

2)      Click Advanced

3)      Click open and then select edit

4)      Now click open and then select edit.

5)      Add "%1" (with quotation marks) to end of the “Application use to perform  action:” and then click OK.

6)      Mine looks like the image below with the highlighted text being the text I added

Bellsouth is blocking my email

NOTE:  Thanks to Ben Totanes for pointing out that this now applies to all AT&T (att.net) accounts and sbcglobal.net accounts.

I've thought about this a great deal, and I think my initial concerns have proven true.  Taking two companies who were neck and neck in the race for nations worst tech support and merging them was a very bad idea.  This became even more apparent as I was troubleshooting an issue where one of our clients was unable to send email to a specific domain (AT&T's Bellsouth.net domain).

One of our clients recently noticed their messages to BellSouth.net were being delayed and then they received an NDR.  The error messages they received looked like: "This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.  Unable to deliver message to the following recipients, due to being unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server."

There are a few steps you can take to greatly expedite the troubleshooting process:

1)    Check a site like http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx to make sure you are not on a blacklist.

2)    Perform an NSLookup for Bellsouth.net on your mail server.

H:\>nslookup
Default Server:  appserver.local.dcaglobal.com
Address:  10.100.111.2 > set type=mx
> bellsouth.net
Server:  appserver.local.dcaglobal.com
Address:  10.100.111.2

Non-authoritative answer:
bellsouth.net   MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = gateway-f2.isp.att.net
bellsouth.net   MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = gateway-f1.isp.att.net gateway-f2.isp.att.net  internet address = 207.115.11.16
gateway-f1.isp.att.net  internet address = 204.127.217.16

3)    From command prompt attempt a telnet connection to a Bellsouth mail server on port 25 (e.g. telnet 204.127.217.16 25).  Pay attention to the response, if your connection is rejected you are most likely on one of their blacklists.

Good response: 220 isp.att.net - Maillennium ESMTP/MULTIBOX frfwmxc11 #116

Bad Response: 550-65.182.55.3 blocked by ldap:ou=rblmx,dc=bellsouth,dc=net

550 See http://www.att.net/bls_rbl/ for information.

4)      If you are blocked, send an email to bellsouth_unblock@abuse-att.net including

a.       Originating email domain:

b.      IP Address of mail server

c.       Company name:

d.      Phone Number:

e.       Contact Email:

f.       Time issue was first noticed:

g.      Error received:

h.      Message Header (if you have it):

5)      You can also request they unblock your email address here: http://worldnet.att.net/general-info/bls_info/block_admin.html

This issue took far more time to troublshoot than it should have due to the obscure/misleading NDR message from Bellsouth.  I'm hoping that by posting this I might save a few people a bit of time.

SQL Reinstall

Summary:  How to full uninstall and reinstall of SQL without losing your databases.  This can be especially helpful if your SQL Trial expires.  It can also be useful if you have a corrupt database and corrupt SQL install and want to do a resinstall of SQL and repair of your database.

I love me some Microsoft documentation!  One of my clients need to do a rush install of SharePoint about 195 days ago.  For the backend we installed the Trial Edition of SQL Server 2005.  That is all well and good until you are ready to install the real version of SQL.  The test version is Enterprise edition which doesn't have a great migration path to standard.  To make a very long story short, we needed to uninstall SQL and then reinstall it from the command line.  And the documentation on making this happen is miserable.  So, without further ado, the commands to make this happen. 

VERY IMPORTANT, read the template.ini file which is located on the CD.  It goes over all the switches and is the most worthwhile piece of documentation out there. That data simply isn't included in other locations.

Uninstall: 

Place CD in drive, and from the command prompt change to the directory containing the setup.exe file on the CD.  Type: 

start /wait setup.exe /qb REMOVE=ALL INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER SAVESYSDB=1

The SAVESYSDB=1 is what sets the flag to tell SQL not to blow away your database.  This is very important.  The default instance name of SQL will be MSSQLSERVER.  If you named yours something else you'll need to adjust accordingly.  Reboot your server.

Now for the resinstall.  Create a file on the C: drive of the server called SQLinstall.ini.  Cut and paste the following text into the file (making the appropriate edits):

; To use this .ini file, use the /settings switch on the SQL Server 2005 Setup.exe command ;line.
; For example: start /wait setup.exe /qb /settings c:\template.ini

; SECURITY NOTE: If you create a template.ini file that contains logins and passwords, store ;the file in a secured location after use.
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; The following line is REQUIRED when using a settings file.

[Options]

USERNAME=John Doe
COMPANYNAME=Viant

;--------------------------------------------------------------------

;This should be the directory to which you are installing SQL
INSTALLSQLDIR="D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\"
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
;If desired you can use this section to define which components you are installing

ADDLOCAL=ALL

;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; INSTANCENAME is REQUIRED; for a default instance use MSSQLSERVER 

INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; USESYSDB specifies the root path to the data directory of the system databases during ;upgrade.
;VERY IMPORTANT:  Ensure this points to the correct directory,
;MORE IMPORTANT:  DO NOT ADD DATA AFTER MSSQL, LEAVE AS IS.

USESYSDB="D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\"
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; The services for SQL Server and Analysis Server are set auto start. To use the *ACCOUNT ;settings
; make sure to specify the DOMAIN, e.g. SQLACCOUNT=DOMAINNAME\ACCOUNT
; NOTE:  When installing SQL_Engine 3 accounts are REQUIRED: SQLACCOUNT, AGTACCOUNT and SQLBROWSERACCOUNT.

 SQLBROWSERACCOUNT=Viant\SQLAccount
SQLBROWSERPASSWORD=I'mAGoodPassword

SQLACCOUNT=Viant\SQLAccount
SQLPASSWORD=I'mAGoodPassword

AGTACCOUNT=Viant\SQLAccount
AGTPASSWORD=I'mAGoodPassword

ASACCOUNT=Viant\SQLAccount
ASPASSWORD=I'mAGoodPassword

RSAccount=Viant\SQLAccount
RSPASSWORD=I'mAGoodPassword

;Note - this account does not exist on my domain.
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; To use the *AUTOSTART features, specify 1 to start automatically or 0 to start manually.

SQLBROWSERAUTOSTART=1
SQLAUTOSTART=1
AGTAUTOSTART=1
ASAUTOSTART=0
RSAUTOSTART=0
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; To use Mixed mode authentication, use SECURITYMODE=SQL.
; If SECURITYMODE=SQL is not specified, then Windows Authentication only will be used by ;default.
; If you use SQL Authentication, you are REQUIRED to provide a strong system administrator ;(SA) password.
; If you use Windows Authentication, the SA account will be disabled.
; To set SA password specify SAPWD.

SECURITYMODE=SQL
SAPWD=********
;--------------------------------------------------------------------

You are now home free.  The last part is to open a command prompt, browse to the location of the setup.exe file on your CD and run:

start /wait setup.exe /qb /settings c:\SQLInstall.ini.

If you come across this and it helps you out, let me know.  I realize lots of details are not fleshed out, so if you need help, let me know that too.  I was not able to find this process documented anywhere which made the process far more time consuming than it needed to be.  I hope by posting this I can save someone the headache that I have right now (it's 2:30 in the morning and I just finished the install).

Shrinking a Virtual Disk

While we're on the topic of VMware Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/) let me mention another great use for it.  Resizing virtual disks.  Especially shrinking them (you've got plenty of other options for growing them). 

To resize a Virtual Disk:

1. Login as an administrator on the machine whose Hard Disk you wish to resize
2. Install VMware Converter
3. Open VMware Converter and select Import Machine
4. Select "Physical Computer" as the host
5. Select "This Local Machine" for the Source Login
6. For Source Data, there is a column for "New Disk Space".  Select "<Type  Size in GB>" and type in your desired new disk size.
7. Under Destination Type, select the appropriate destination (if you're not sure, then that's a sign you most likely want to use VMware standalone virtual machine).
8. Complete the wizard with approrpiate login information or source locations and VMware will recreate your new system.
9. Once the new VM is created, power down your old server, power on the newly created one and you are off and running.

Parallels to VMWare Fusion

The Background

One bucket.  That's what I want.  One bucket for all my action items.  Unfortunately, when you regularly work work from 5 different computers that may or may not be conneted to the same network, this becomes a bit difficult.  Especially when those systems aren't connected to the domain your co-workers are connected to.

Fortunately, I have a Virtual Machie running in Parallels on my notebook which is conneted to that domain.  I'm a huge VMWare fan, but I'm every bit the Parallel's fan is well.  Coherence rocks.  However,  I do most of my strategic work from my home office which has a Mac mini and a Dell XPS system running Vista.  So, the notebook is not the right location for that VM, it should be on one of those home systems.

All of that rambling to say, I've decided to move the VM that lives on the domain where my tasks ought to be organized from Parallels on my notebook to VMWare Fusion running on my Mac Mini at home.  My hope was that VMware Fusion would natively recognize the Parallels file.  Unfortunately, that's just not the case.  Below is the brief synopsis of what needed to happen to get it working.

The Technical Details

I first installed the VMware Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/) onto my Virtual Machine.  VMWare Converter has to be run as an administrator which my default account is not.  A simple Run As command took care of this.  Once I had VMware Converter running I simply clicked the "Import Virtual Machine" button, selected "Standalone virtual machine ..." as the Source, "This Local Machine" at the Source Login screen and then finished out the Wizard without much more thought. 

Once the Converter finished its job and it gave me a folder with all the needed Vmdk files, I enabled file sharing on the Mac Mini and moved the files from my notebook to the Mini.  I then opened Fusion (which I downloaded from http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/) and selected "File -> New".  This brought up a mostly self-explanatory Wizard.  The only slightly confusing part is that the Wizard asks for a Destination Location on the screen where you name your system.  I soon found this does not matter because on the next screen (Virtual Hard Disk) gave me an "Advanced Disk Options" which allowed me to select "Use an Existing Virtual Disk" which then allowed me to select the location of the VMDK files I just moved to the system.

Once this was complete, I upgraged the hardware of the VM (under the Virtual Machine folder) and was mostly good to go.  Microsoft wanted me to reactivate everything due to the change in hardware (both Windows and Office).  That was definitely annoying and added one more notch to the "man I wish I could find a more viable alternative to Microsoft Windows for my client that isn't so dependent on Microsoft" meter.  That meter is certainly not over the edget yet, but it's definitely climbing.

Now that Microsoft is activated, it seems that all is well with the newly relocated VM.  We'll have to see how Fusion works out for me.  I think I'm going to miss Coherence, but I'm too cheap to buy a parallels license and very interested to see Fusion in action.  I'll run with it for a bit and let you know how it goes.  Already I like the "Take Snapshot" feature, I look forward to checking out 3D graphics (although I doubt I'll care, I'm such a boring computer user), and I'm glad they let me hid the toolbar.

Well, if you've read to the end leave a comment.  I want to know who both of you are :)  Of course I'm not sure if I'll find your diligence in reading such a boring post impressive or concerning ...

SBS is like a horse - shoot it

The diagnosis for most ailments for a horse involves shooting it.  Well, I recently learned that troubleshooting Exchange issues on an SBS server is much the same...

Not too long ago I was configuring Windows Mobile Services on a Windows Small Business server.  Everything was configured right, but it still wasn't working.  Regedits were their, IIS Virtual directories were set-up with proper permissions and so on and so forth.  After spending a few hours troubleshooting, I modified my research to include Small Business Server.  I learned the solution to all Exchange related issues on an SBS box.  Run the wizard.  More specifically, in the Server Management utility, under Internet and Email, run the Repair Internet and E-mail Settings.  It will maintain all your settings and typically resolve any issues you may be having.  So easy even a caveman could do it ....

Repairing Boot Sectors

I had a key drive on a very important server lose its boot sector today.  As a quick refresher, in the Windows environment your System Drive (typically C:) has a Master Boot Record (MBR).  All of your other partitions have a boot sector which is somewhat like the MBR in addition to the Partition Table. 

Well I had a boot sector go bad on a critical hard drive.  The drive still showed up as the D: drive, but if I clicked on it the system offered to format it for me.  Under disk management it showed the drive, but did not show that it was NTFS.  Because the server was running on ESX my first call was to VMware.  The support provided was excellent.  They reviewed the VMware logs and when thet didn't show anything we dug into the Windows logs (all of them!)  Rather than simply saying its not a VMware issue, he really dug into to help me find the cause of the issue.

I initially tried Partition Recovery to resolve the issue which allowed me to see the drive and create an image of it, but it would not restore it.  It would have been happy to restore a generic MBR, but wouldn't do anything for the boot sector of the drive (wasted $40).  Then I decided to try Partition Table Doctor (http://www.ptdd.com/index.htm).  When I opened up the application, it immediately identified the issue and told we to run Fixpart on it.  So, I did and after about 5 seconds of processing the issue was resolved.  I will certainly remember this utility for the future.

A quick refresher on Partioning schemes can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_table and at http://www.ptdd.com/recover-partition-table.htm.