Sunday, March 31, 2013

Excel Closing Slowly

Excel seemed to open fast enough for someone in our accounting department, but its closing was glacial.

I removed all Add-ins (File > Options > Add-Ins) and even started it in Safe Mode (Run... excel /s), but it still lagged on close.

Not surprising, Excel has a default template like Word's Normal.dot named ExcelXX.xlb, XX being the version number of Excel, in this case it's 2010 which is version 12.

Once Excel12.xlb was renamed in C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel, the file was regenerated upon start starting Excel and from then on, it closed without hesitation.

For further troubleshooting steps, visit the overlords at Microsoft.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Changing the Default Windows Icon

I don't know about you, but always having the "orange flower" icon whenever I log into a new account on a system or use the Remote Desktop client has gotten old.

Of course, you can change the account icon by clicking on it from the Start Menu, bringing you into Control Panel > User Accounts to select Change your picture and choose from the list available or Browse for more pictures...

But if you want to change the default permanently, grab yourself a 128 x 128 bitmap (.bmp) image and name it user.bmp and dump it into: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures, confirm to overwrite.

You can also add your own icons to the list offered by naming the bitmaps usertile45.bmp, usertile46.bmp, etc. and placing them in: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

As you would imagine, this works for Windows Vista and 2008/R2. Still don't have a Windows 8 system to use, so you're mileage may vary with that...