I ran into an interesting problem at a site a few weeks back. A user had a laptop with Vista and Office 2007. Here were the symptoms:

1. When the user double-clicked on a Word attachment in Outlook, Word would open but the document wouldn’t. After the user closed the Word session, it would immediately hang.

2. When the user double-clicked on a Word document on the desktop, it would open Word but an error would come up stating it could not find the path or file. When closing the Word session, it would hang.

3. When the user opened Word first, then navigated to the desktop or attachment folder from within Word, the document would open correctly. Word would still hang when closing.

In every case, the Word options were grayed-out, so disabling add-ins was not possible.

The first step to solving the problem involved disabling add-ins temporarily in order to enter the Word Options. Enter “winword.exe /a” in the Run/Search dialog in the Start Menu. From the File Menu in Word select Word Options -> Add-ins. Disable all add-ins through the “manage ### add-ins” drop-down. After this was performed the user could open Word documents from Outlook and the Desktop without hassle. Word would still crash upon exiting.

The next step was to navigate to: Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates and delete normal.dotm. This file is the default template in Word 2007 (normal.dot for Word 2003). This normally does the trick with a hanging Word app since it forces Word to re-create the template. In this particular case it did not work.

As it turns out, the following registry key is responsible for re-creating the template:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data

If the registry key itself is corrupted, every normal.dotm template that is re-created would be corrupt. By deleting the entire registry key (which would be re-created) it solved the problem of Word hanging on exit.

Other symptoms that could be caused by a bad add-in or corrupt normal.dotm/registry key:

Word crashes when you try to start or to exit Word.
You cannot open a Word document from Windows Desktop Search.
The mouse does not work when you use Word 2007.
You cannot open a Word document from the Search window in Windows Vista.

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Modifying the User Account Options in Windows 7 is slightly different than in Windows Vista. The default UAC prompts in Windows 7 are, in my opinion, sufficient for the average user. There are instances when a user would want to disable UAC or a Network Admin would want to disable UAC on all computers via Group Policy. Below are 3 methods to turn up, turn down, or disable UAC completely.

Disable UAC via Control Panel

1. Go to the Start Menu -> Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Accounts -> Change User Account Control Settings

Disable UAC via Registry Editor

1. Type “regedit” in the Start -> Search bar.
2. Go to the following Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
3. Locate REG_DWORD: EnableLUA
4. Set the value of EnableLUA to 0.
5. Locate REG_DWORD: ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin
6. Set the value of ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin to 0.
7. Restart

Disable UAC via Group Policy

1. Type “gpedit.msc” in the Start -> Search bar.
2. Double-Click: Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options.
3. Scrolling to the bottom of the screen shows the following User Account Control Settings.
   
4. Locate: “User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode” and modify to “Elevate without prompt”
5. Locate: “User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation” and modify it to “Disabled”
6. Locate: “User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode” and modify it to “Disabled”
7. Locate: “User Account Control: Only elevate UIAccess applications that are installed in secure locations” and modify it to “Disabled”
8. Restart.

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Windows 7 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta support booting into the OS via a VHD file attached to Virtual PC/Server or Hyper-V.

The first step is to create the virtual hard disk (VHD) of Windows 7 Beta. Right-Click on “Computer” and select “Manage.” From there expand “Storage” and right-click on “Disk Management” and select “Create VHD.” The following dialog box will appear:

You can also use the command prompt to create the VHD file.

Once you have created the VHD file, boot your machine with the Windows 7 DVD in the dvd drive and choose “Install Now,” then press SHIFT+F10 to get the command prompt. Type the following:

When you return to the installation procedure, you will see a 20GB partition, select this. It will warn that you cannot boot from it – disregard this message – you can! Continue the install.

When you boot up, it will make Windows 7 the default boot option. You can change this using bcdedit.

This is great for installing multiple copies of Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 on a machine or storage area network without creating multiple partitions. The VHD files are then portable and able to be used on other servers and machines using Hyper-V or Virtual PC/Server.

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For those not aware of the MP3 corruption issue in Windows 7 Beta 7000, here is a link.

If you have installed the beta, download either the x86 or x64 patch. It isn’t available through Windows Update yet. Further information is available here (KB 961367).

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Here is a quick list of applications that I have installed on Windows 7 Beta 7000 x64 that work:

Notepad++ 5.1.3
WinRAR 3.80
VLC 0.9.8a
Opera 9.63
Visual Studio 2008
SQL Server 2005
Printkey 2000 5.10
Office 2007
OpenOffice 3
iTunes
Acrobat Reader 9
Adobe Master Collection (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc) CS3
RealVNC Free Edition 4.1.3 x86
Firefox 3.0.5
Thunderbird 2.0.0.19
Xvid 1.2.1
DivX 7
ac3Filter 1.51a
Windows Live Messenger
Adobe Flash
Microsoft Silverlight
PC Anywhere 12.1 Host and Remote

So far ISO Recorder V3 does not let me install, and Google Chrome 1x and 2x does not work.

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