Lot's of problems [UNRESOLVED]

[Ruku]

Great microsoft products on the bug, please help, me tired to hell, before I shoot myself in the head, please don't encourage me by saying Format your drive tips or reinstall:

1. Windows XP pro SP1:

On my laptop, when I shut it down from windows, it takes a lot of time for no apearant reason. After the usual saving your settings stuff, there's a black screen and it takes ALOT of time to close, which is not so great... I got SP1 and all security updates before SP2, SP2 is total crap, so don't bother asking me to install it plz.

Possible things affecting it: Novell netware or the following problems

2. .Net Framework:

Whenever I run the .Net framework, there's a MSI like window poping out saying "Please wait while we configure Microsoft XP with frontpage", I thought, oh, maybe I forgot a component from frontpage, so I looked it up, but I didn't...

3. Office

On any office program, like word, when it starts there's a window poping out and saying it contains macros (blank document here) and it asks if I wanna open it in read-only... hmk, no virus, got antivirus with up to date definitions, crazy problems targetting me...

This office problem might have occured since I installed Antidote (french program update better than that dictionnary from word... etc), which started up with the macro craps...

4. Novell security

There is a thing that bothers me from Novell which would be very cool to hold off temporarilly: When you install Novell on a computer (client) you may notice that it takes a lot of time to display a property window of a file or folder even though my laptop computer has an ati radeon 9700 mobility, with 1 gig ram and dual bus channel 2 ghz centrino processor... which is probably from the fact that it searches for network rights to display the properties (which the laptop is not connected to most of the time...)

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Well, I guess that's it, we all have our little microsoft tweaks to make a day or another... I just hope people ran into a few of my problems to help me solve them, I'd greatly appreciate any pointers on them.

[NoteMe]

2. .Net Framework:

Whenever I run the .Net framework, there's a MSI like window poping out saying "Please wait while we configure Microsoft XP with frontpage", I thought, oh, maybe I forgot a component from frontpage, so I looked it up, but I didn't...

.NET need some FrontPage extensions to run. So they should be installed before .NET.


ØØ

[Ruku]

.Net runs fine, it just pops up the MSI like screen, which is annoying, and it doesn't do it at school or anywhere else I've seen. And I did install frontpage... before or after shouldn't matter, can't remember which was installed first.........

[dglienna]

I rarely shut down my laptop, but allow it to hibernate. Much quicker.
(XP Home)

I have the Net framework here.

I have Office XP.

- Make sure that Office is up to date.

(I also have SP2, which hasn't done anything for the speed, but it has caused no problems)

[<ABX]

1.
I have been running XP SP2 since final/beta and had no problems (not getting updates is NEVER a good idea unless the update(s) cause problems.
It also may be time to reinstall
(if i remember correctly there were some novel client issues with winxp, check with novell and download the latest client.

2.
How do you run the .Net Framework? do you mean run an application that requires the .net framwork? or do you mean try to install the .net Framework?

3.
Office is designed to be really careful about the documents that it runs(some antivirus apps increase this to high upon install.
to changed the security level for an indiviual app goto Tools > Macros > Security (in word/excel/access) and set it lower(this may leave you open to attacks.

4.
Personally, I hate Novell. I have had to use it at school.
You could manually remove the Novell Property Sheet from the shell (and thus removing your ability to set Novell Permissions (w/o command line)
(if you want instructions just ask)

[Ruku]

how does hibernation work btw? does it completelly halts your system and shuts it down, then reeboot to it's previous state or it's just some sort of enhanced sleep mode? Cause I can't let the power on in the suitcase, it's gonna blow otherwise... my motherboard burned once, don't wanna burn it again (didn't burn like that but it could if the ventilation isn't appropriate I guess: sealed case = bad ventilation!!!)

I got office XP I guess I should get 2003, and I've read much about SP2, I really don't like it, exept for the new wireless features... but besides that... nothing much but trouble: I've installed it on my old computer and it slowed down A LOT, as in almost not functionnal... Speed would probably not be a problem on my laptop, but I like it optimized, which is why I don't really want SP2 and want those problems fixed...

Thanks for comments, any help on the problems

[<ABX]

how does hibernation work btw?

hibernation writes the ram to the hard drive and then powers off (it does not need any power)

then when the system starts up it loads the file back into the ram..

[Ruku]

1.
I have been running XP SP2 since final/beta and had no problems (not getting updates is NEVER a good idea unless the update(s) cause problems.
It also may be time to reinstall
(if i remember correctly there were some novel client issues with winxp, check with novell and download the latest client.

Me no like SP2 and have reasons to believe so... for Novell, I'll go and look around for updates...

2.
How do you run the .Net Framework? do you mean run an application that requires the .net framwork? or do you mean try to install the .net Framework?

I mean the studio (2003 2nd edition I think)

3.
Office is designed to be really careful about the documents that it runs(some antivirus apps increase this to high upon install.
to changed the security level for an indiviual app goto Tools &gt; Macros &gt; Security (in word/excel/access) and set it lower(this may leave you open to attacks.

I see, I'll go look around the macro tools, the response to the macro is displayed on blank document which is annoying... as in openning word was a dangerous macro...

4.
Personally, I hate Novell. I have had to use it at school.
You could manually remove the Novell Property Sheet from the shell (and thus removing your ability to set Novell Permissions (w/o command line)
(if you want instructions just ask)

That is the exact reason why I use Novell: to access db faster at school... I'd be interested in knowing how to use the permission features from shell or not of Novell, but it must be temporary, at worst having 2 batch files that enables or disables the property would be VERY usefull...!

Thanks for your help!

[<ABX]

I dont have the novel client on this system but should be able to walk you thru doing it.

This will involve using the registry editor, you will need to browse to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Approved

(Novel need to add the Property Sheet's Handler CLSID to this key)
just right click on the approved key and click export, save it to a file and upload it here.

If you dont know what the registry is then im afraid that this task is a little too much .... i wont have access to a machine with novell installed on it for another week or so you would have to wait untill then....

[Ideas Man]

XPSP2 is not bad. I've installed it on many computers w/o a single glitch. It's not ment to install new GUIs or anthing like that so dismissing it because it doesn't offer 'new features' isn't a good reason. It's a security update.

That said, if you do end up reinstalling for any reason, always install it first. You'll find there are usually no problems after a reinstall. It actually sped mine up.

As for the Word problem, you can try creating Self-Signing certificates for macros w/o lowering the security level.

To do this you'll need to install the Digital Certificate for VBA Projects component of Office. Run it, generate a certificate then in Word, open the Visual Basic Macro Editor, select the macro causing the problems, click the Tools menu -> Digital Signature... Click Choose and select the digital signature you just created. Click OK every time prompted and close Microsoft Word.

Once you restart Microsoft Word, you'll get the prompt again, but there'll be a checkbox to always trust the macros, check it and click Enable. It won't bother you again.

[dglienna]

sounds like you have a macro in the DOT file. Not sure why, but perhaps you could not allow it to see what is different when you create a new document?

Hibernate shuts down the laptop in 1/10 the time, the same with start-up. I shut-down about once per week to do auto disk scanning/virus checking stuff.

You could have a different ID for Novell. Then things won't get loaded unless you load with this User.

Whether or not you re-install Windows, before you install SP2, make SURE that you download all other updates that are available. I had a problem with a machine that had an old sound card. M$ talked me through it, but they said the #1 reason of failure was not updating apps first. (Although there was nothing available for my system at the time, and everything worked after installing sp2 without the soundcard, and then installing it)

Pretty weird for a SoundBlaster product. Even they never heard of it.

[Ruku]

Thanks for the help peeps!

Didn't resolve everything, but I guess I got enough pointers to look for solutions...