Since the release of Vista, you can use the command line utility slmgr for Windows activation when using a MAK (or Multiple Activation Key).

Windows Activation

1. Open a command window (as administrator)
2. And run…

slmgr -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
slmgr -ato

Office Activation

1. Open a command window (as administrator)
2. From C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14 run…

cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
cscript ospp.vbs /act

Who needs all that pointing and clicking anyway?

“Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:
 
Jane Doe
Your message wasn’t delivered because of security policies…”

In our case, Jane Doe was no longer an employee and her account was disabled. The sender of the message was requesting a meeting with someone who had Jane as his admin, so he had her as a Delegate for his Calendar. Once we removed her from his Outlook’s Delegate list, there were no more errors.

Pretty simple, but they’ve moved Delegate Access in Outlook 2010, now you go to File > Account Settings > Delegate Access

For Outlook 2007 and earlier, go to Tools > Options > Delegates tab.

Prior to Outlook 2010 all this information was kept in a NK2 file, typically called Outlook.NK2. Previously you could just copy this file to the corresponding folder on a new machine and it worked almost like magic. With the new upgrade, not so much. It’s not a hard process to import the auto-complete data, but there are some additional steps.

1. Copy your old *.NK2 file to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook
2. Ensure the name matches your current profile name, default is Outlook. (Look in Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles… to be sure.)
3. Now from the Run… prompt enter: outlook.exe /importnk2 and click OK.
4. Once imported the NK2 file will have a .old extension, remove that if you wish to run the import again.

All auto-complete data is now kept within an Outlook 2010 mailbox, so no external files will be needed in the future.

Here’s a short list of what’s been moved around (and yes, I’m writing this as much for me as anyone else)…

All Users:

• All Users Desktop, Favorites, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures & Videos – C:\Users\Public
• All Users Start Menu – C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• Documents and Settings (just for completeness sake): C:\Users
• Templates – C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Templates

User Specific:

• Cookies – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies
• Default Outlook OST/PST folder – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
• Quick Launch – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
• Send To – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
• Start Menu - C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• Temp – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp
• Temporary Internet Files – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

To confirm that this was the case, I opened the trusty EMS and ran this command on an affected individual.

test-exchangesearch username | fl

This result confirmed the catalog corruption:
ResultFound : False
SearchTime : -1

The fix is rather easy, but depending on your database size, can be rather lengthy. The script below stops the Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer, deletes the Catalog of the database in question and restarts the Indexer which fires off a complete rebuild.

You can find the script here (from where it must be run): <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts

Syntax: ResetSearchIndex.ps1 -force <database>

Example: ResetSearchIndex.ps1 -force “Mailbox One“

The rebuilding of our catalogs took almost an hour for a 80GB database. And that was on a fairly powerful system with 32GB of RAM.

This error comes about when multiple users have the same resource open, in this case a conference room, and make edits causing the Free/Busy information to become corrupt.

In order to fix the issue, just change one of the scheduling settings within Outlook > Options > Calendar > Resource Scheduling…, such as “Automatically decline recurring meeting requests,” click OK, then change it back. It’ll cause the Free/Busy data to rebuild and scheduling may once again take place.

With Outlook closed, browse on over to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033 and rename the MSMAPI32.DLL file. Open Outlook again and the MSMAPI32.DLL file will be replaced with the proper version (Office or Outlook install media may be required).

Click here for a full list of what’s available, all that is required is Silverlight for viewing.

I’m currently watching the eleven videos for Windows 7, part of my studies for an upcoming certification exam, and they’ve been pretty good so far. And of course, they’re free :)

Turned out to be an issue with an faulty uninstall of Chrome, which left some bits behind in the registry. Bad, bad uninstaller! Go stand in the corner!

Anyway, after numerous searches and a number of unsuccessful fix attempts, Slipstick had the answer. Windows was trying to use the browser that was no longer installed, but was still referenced in the registry.

1. Start, click Run…, type Regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html
3. Right-click the value for the .html key and select Modify…
4. Change the value from “ChromeHTML” to “htmlfile” (or from FireFoxHTML to htmlfile)
5. Repeat these steps for .htm and .shtml keys if they exist. You may also want to check the .xhtml and .xhtm keys.

Note: As always, the Registry can be a dangerous place, so do a backup/export before making changes.

This didn’t even require a reboot and yet another happy customer was made. Judging by the amount of possible issues causing this message, this is only one needle in a field of haystacks.

As a subscriber you get a huge array of non-expiring Microsoft software covering all their operating systems (including DOS), applications, server software and early access to beta, release candidate and RTM software (I’m actually writing this on the full release version of Windows 7).

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I’m not trying to line the pockets of the Redmond empire, I just believe this is a great value for anyone working with/or training on Microsoft software; the benefits well outweigh the price.