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Windows 7 - Macrotone Blogs

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Geoffrey Chapman

Quicken UK Personal Finance

qw2k43We have for more years than we care to mention used a personal Finance program to track all of our finances.  The package we have used in known as Quicken developed by Intuit. Unfortunately back in 2005 they decided that it was not economical to continue with the UK version and thus it is many years since we last updated the package.  In fact it is even longer than that since the version we use is/was dated 2001.

This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds since financial accounting hasn’t significantly changed over time and crediting and debiting amounts from an account still functions exactly the same.  However the program runs/ran upon Windows XP, and even Microsoft have officially ceased XP support.  We have even resorted to having a virtual machine just to run our old version.

This situation is not ideal but the main competitor Microsoft Money was also withdrawn in 2005.  There are a few alternative from smaller producers available, but familiarity with Quicken is not one of their main considerations, not surprisingly.

In the States the version of Quicken is 2015 version, so we decided to see if it were possible to upgrade.

The first thing we discovered was that the file format of the Quicken data file has changed so even if we wanted to migrate to the latest US version we would have to go through an intermediate step to convert the files.  Fortunately Quicken UK provide a free upgrade to Quicken 2004 R2, which can convert the file.  We installed the update and the file was successfully converted. We performed the conversion on our virtual XP machine, after ensuring suitable backups etc., were taken.

We then wondered whether we could run this upgraded 2004 version on Windows 7 native.  We found this post which mentioned that many people were able to use it on Windows 7. The posts were dated 2011 but with nothing to lose we installed the upgrade on Windows 7.  It installed fine but when we tried to run it we received the error that the file MFC70.dll was missing.  Again we found a post that provided a resolution.   In our case we merely changed the install file to be XP compatible and reran the install. This time it ran successfully after reinstalling.

Then we loaded out backup QData file and we were back on track.

OK we have no official support for such an old version but it functions well, and having never had the need for support in over 20+ years, it is not a major consideration. Updated share prices and the ability to download from Financial institutions were both features that we rarely used so  that they will (probably) not work is not a concern.

Next we have to look at obtaining and using the US 2015 version.  In theory we should be able to use the US version by specifying our default currently as Sterling.  We would probably not be able to use the Cloud storage and a few other ‘features’ either which begs the question is this something worthwhile doing?

The first problem is going to in obtaining a version from the US, since they are reluctant to send a US version out of the States, since we do not have a US Zip code. Amazon state that the product is only available to to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.  Since we do not this is a potential show stopper.  EBay appear to have a few sellers but with postage such a large contribution to the total cost there has to be  cheaper option.

So currently we have managed to ‘upgrade’ our version to the last UK supported version and can run it upon Windows 7, which is a cleaner solution that using a virtual machine with the 2001 version.  This is progress and moves us further forward with a good working base but we are not running the latest US version which was our original intent. Something to look at again when we have some more time.

 

Tags:
Quicken Personal Finance program Windows 7
Geoffrey Chapman

Install IIS, PHP, MySQL & Joomla on Windows 7

iisWe had cause to investigate a problem with a Joomla component installed upon an IIS platform.  We usually use Apache as our web server, so were not totally familiar with the use of IIS, so this blog covers the installation, configuration and the basic options of IIS, PHP, MySQL and Joomla.

There is no intent to make use of such a setup upon a regular basis, and would anticipate only having to perform the task infrequently, hence the decision to document the steps.  We encountered a number of problems as we performed the set up, and we searched on the web in many placed before achieved our goal. For this reason this is somewhat long, but the benefit being that we have all the details in one location.

The installation is assuming the use of a local installation upon a single workstation.

Continue reading
Tags:
Windows 7 Web Server MySQL PHP joomla IIS
Geoffrey Chapman

Problems with Windows 7 SP1 installation

windows7The question of quite how one is perceived as an expert in all things computing when one knows a little about one aspect of IT, is one that I will leave for those much more knowledgeable than I.

The other week I was presented with a PC that was reported as ‘crashing’ whilst in use.

I must admit I never managed to find it  crashing on me whilst I was looking it over, but there were a number of things that didn’t look quite right, as is usual when presented with a machine with ‘problems’.  There was a lot of ‘temp files’, consuming disk space and it was split into two partitions, the second of which (the data partition D:) was virtually empty and the system partition C: was virtually full, so a repartitioning would be a good start.  The Windows registry revealed a lot of entries that were not being used and there were obviously a lot of updates missing of which the most obvious was SP1.  One proceeded to run virus scans and starts updating with the latest Microsoft fixes. However whilst most of the updates applied themselves without any issues. SP1 would fail with an error message ‘0x800f081f’.

Searching the web suggested various solutions such as running a full disk check, installing the Windows Update Readiness Tool etc., but none of these made the slightest difference to the symptoms, even though there were a few disk errors detected and corrected.  As each solution involved quite a long time to complete, especially the disk check this was not going to be a quick resolution.

The Microsoft web site didn’t throw up any possible solution, but surely after all this time, I couldn’t be the first person to hit this problem? After several days spent trying the suggestions and after much searching I eventually found this link. Although it was concerning Windows 2008 R2 it was still applicable. The symptoms described almost exactly match what we were experiencing. Even the screenshots reflected the symptoms we observed, although the event log display was slightly different.  With this closeness we tried the suggestion.

The removal of the patch KB976932 with the Deployment Image Services and Management Tool, took over an hour and it was not always immediately obvious that it was being removed, or even doing anything at all, but one resisted the temptation to ‘tinker’.  Once removed the next attempt to install the SP1 upgrade immediately started working.

Over an hour later after a reboot we could then check for any further updates. As you may guess there were nearly another 100 patches to apply, so we were not complete yet, but at least we were over our major hurdle and we were almost ready to finish our tests and give the machine back to its owners.

Tags:
Windows 7 updates Tools
Geoffrey Chapman

Another PC puzzle

windows7It must be the week for PC problems, since I was given another one to try and puzzle out the other day.

The machine was running slowly, and seemed to have difficultly in logging off users, shutting down, and even performing any long term tasks. Also noted that Windows Update would loop forever ‘Searching for updates’.   Even trying to run a virus scan kept hanging on files which I am reasonably sure were virus clean.  The machine wouldn’t ‘hibernate’ or ‘sleep’ and the user was forced to depress the power button to close down the machine.  To add insult to injury even the ‘task window’ was behaving erratically making diagnosis night on impossible, but when it did work the machine was showing less than 3% usage.

I have never seen a machine behave quite like this and immediately suspected a virus infection of some form. Norton and McAfee kept 'sticking' on various files when running and wouldn't run in safe mode for some obscure reason.  Even the McAfee program was refusing to use 'Real Time checking' and would periodically say it needed updating, even when at other times it was 'up to date'. Managed to run a virus scan using the excellent McAfee Stinger program in safe mode, which revealed that the machine was virus free, which whilst satisfying still got one no nearer to knwing what was going on.  Next various attempts were made to resolve individual symptoms with mixed success. Never could get Windows Update to work reliably though.  Even resorting to system restore and using the oldest restore from a month earlier, exhibited the same symptoms.

After wasting several hours trying to pin down the source of the problem the final step was just to bite the bullet and perform a factory reset, having ensured that I had copies of all the users files (documents, music etc.).   The restore worked perfectly and then comes the task of updating it with all of the latest Microsoft updates, which is no small task.  It is at times like this that you realise just how many fixes Microsoft release for their operating system. Several hours later it is still finding more fixes. Once you have run an update, running it again shows even more fixes are found.  It took six, yes six separate update checks to get up to date and that is just for the operating system itself, not for the Microsoft applications (Office). 

Next to load the user applications and copy back the users files.  In all over 24 hours have been spent dedicated to just getting the machine back to a usable state and I still have no distinct idea of what was causing the problem in the first place.  No viruses appeared to be present with all virus software fully up to date, and the program installation history indicated nothing new had been installed for several months.  Obviously a few program updates may have been made to things like browsers, but the problems were present even with no browsers active (but background processes were of course still present).

I suspect I may never really know what was the cause of the problem and searching the web doesn’t throw up any similar reported situations. One to put down to ‘unknown’ I guess. Never had to resort to a Factory reset before, but it proves the worth of the manufacturers (in this case HP) supplying them in a reserved disk partition.

Tags:
updates Windows 7
Geoffrey Chapman

Windows 7 Networks connectors suddenly stop working

windows7Had an interesting problem this morning which while not difficult to fix took up a lot of time investigating.

Yesterday the laptop was working perfectly fine, connecting to the internet via the wireless connector. This morning the wireless connector failed to make a connection to the hub.  Very strange, but even more so when all other PC devices were working fine, and even the plugged in network adaptor was failing to make a connection.  Running the command line ‘ipconfig’ command didn’t even display the network adaptors as existing!

Looking at the network adaptors didn’t show anything unusual in the control panel. They were present and enabled and running fine.  However the network trouble-shooter said there were problems with the adaptors but couldn’t say what was wrong.  A fat lot of use they turned out to be.

Looking at the system activity the only events that I could see were that yesterday afternoon I upgraded ‘Tortoise SVN’ to the latest 1.8.1 version and this morning it looked like ‘Trusteer Rapport’ had also updated itself. Now the machine was fine after the Tortoise upgrade, and presumably the network connection must have been fine if Rapport had upgraded itself.

Uninstalling ‘Rapport’ did not resolve the problem, so tried using System restore to a point prior to the ‘Rapport’ update, but this also failed to resolve the problem.  At this point I decided to uninstall the two network devices (using Device Manager), and then use the ‘discover new hardware’ option to reinstall them.  Surprise, surprise the main network adaptor suddenly started working.  At last a clue.

I then proceeded to perform system restore again to the latest point and then uninstalled, and rediscovered the adaptors.  The main network adaptor worked straight away, but because I had obviously removed the wireless connector details, all of the ‘automatic’ connection details for the adaptor also were lost, so it was necessary to re-enter the connection keys etc.

So the only thing I can conclude from this is that the ‘Trusteer Rapport’ (version 3.5.1208.41) must somehow have impacted the network adaptors, something which even uninstalling didn’t resolve. For those unfamiliar with Rapport it is security software that is used to protect secure sites such as banks etc. Quite why it should impact the network adaptors is not quite so clear. Searching on the web didn’t discover anything similar reported but then again perhaps it is still ‘new’ and nobody else has reported it yet?

Tags:
Windows 7 updates
Geoffrey Chapman

High CPU usage MSE and QNAP QGet

We have noticed a problem since we installed KB2754296, which is an update to Microsoft Security Essentials where our CPU usage continually peaks at 100% usage.

Investigation reveals that the high usage is caused by process NisSrv.exe which is the Microsoft Network Realtime Inspection Service.

We use QNAP network devices and there is a small program called QGet which is used to contact the QNAP Download manager.  QGet runs on the PC and communicates with the QNAP process, and is used to provide the QNAP service with instruction as to what files to download.  When the QGet process is running the NisSRV.exe usage goes through the roof,slowing down the PC to a point where its is virtually unusable.

The version of QGet does not seem to matter and we have tested versions 2.1.5.0702 and 3.0.5.1009 and the result is the same.

The version of MSE is 4.1.5220 and in our installed version there is no way in which the Network inspection service can be disabled.

The only conclusion we can draw is that the two programs are incompatible.  We have disabled the QGet program, since it is not really used much anyway, but MSE should never cause the problem in the first place in our opinion.

Possibly we should consider an alternative security program over MSE!

See: QNAP Forum

Tags:
Windows 7 QNAP
Geoffrey Chapman

Windows 7 Updates August 2012 Problems


Having experienced a few problems with the latest set of Windows 7 Updates for August 2012 I thought I would create this post to possibly assist others.

Firstly the problem seems to only impact 64 bit versions of windows, since 32bit seems to work successfully.

The problem manifests itself as a ‘Failure to apply updates’ following the forced reboot, causing it to fall back to the created restore point.

The cause seems to be fix KB2647753 which can be applied upon its own but not in combination with the others.

Up to 12 updates may be required depending upon the system being updated, but the solution appears to be to select KB2647753 and install it on its own, and then following the reboot (which showed a message about updating the registry) to install all of the other updates as one set. This does require a few reboots but all the updates do get applied successfully.

If like me you tend to update several machines at the same time and start off an update on one machine before starting it in another etc., before returning to the first machine, it is easy to miss he failure message which doesn't stay on the screen for very long. The first one notices is when the machines require updates to be applied a second or possibly a third time. Very annoying.

Tags:
Windows 7 updates
Geoffrey Chapman

5 More Free Tools For Windows 7 You Have To Try

Peter Bruzzese said in his blog: "Every couple of months, it's both entertaining and useful to revisit the tools and toys available to make our desktop experience smoother, more flexible, and, yes, more fun. A while back, I identified eight free Windows 7 tools you have to try and later revealed some truly awesome tools for Windows 7 power users. I have five more "gotta try" Windows tools for you to consider." Check them out here:
More Free Tools

Tags:
Windows 7 Tools
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