Outlook password

It's funny, however long you spend fixing problems, there are still new challenges lurking! This one I have never met before...Outlook repeatedly asks the user to type their password. It accepts it when it is typed, and fetches and sends emails, but next time it asks again...and again!!!

None of the obvious fixes worked - checking the password in the account settings, making sure that it was set to remember the password, creating a new Outlook profile. The answer is pointed out on the Microsoft support site, and involves deleting the registry subkey for the "Protected Storage System Provider". Doing this effectively deletes all the stored passwords for this user account. Once re-entered, this user's system then started to behave again!

New release or upgrade?

I spent quite a long time today trying to install the latest release of some accounting software on a refurbished PC that I had supplied. The install failed and of course the PC took the blame! On testing more thoroughly, I discovered that the software won't install correctly on ANY machine. BUT if the previous version is installed first, and then then latest one, then it works fine. In other words, it's an upgrade, but can't be used on its own!

Surely it should work?

I'm not very impressed with the Acer Veriton X2610G. As delivered, new, it doesn't work! The onboard network adaptor - though correctly installed - does not work when the machine is first started. After a reboot, it works. I have written a DevCon script which uninstalls the device and then reinstalls it, when anyone logs in. This fixes the problem - but, errm, aren't newly purchased items supposed to work???

Refurbished PCs

I've now got 10 Dell 755s set up and ready for use. They are nice solid machines and seem to work very smoothly with 2GB of memory and Windows XP Home Edition.

The NickWorks price is £75, all set up, installed and ready to go!

Sortation facility

I love it!! My recent order of PC hardware is being delivered by DPD. All very well organised, and I can even track the consignment. Where is it now? It's at the Sortation Facility of course! I'm going to send my brain off to the Sortation Facility, surely that would be a good move?

Scheduled tasks need a password

I set a user up with a second disk to store backups of lots of photos. And set up a SyncToy pairing to make sure the backup disk kept a copy of all the pictures. And then set up a scheduled task so that would do this backup automatically at a certain time each day. But the scheduled task kept failing. It turns out that the user must have a password for scheduled tasks to work. A blank password is not allowed!

Windows 8

NickWorks IT Support is testing the evaluation copy of Windows 8. It has installed very easily and so far everything works nicely on an old (2GB 2.4GHz) machine - though it is very strongly Microsoft-branded - Bing, SkyDrive, Windows Live etc. Beneath all the new user interface it feels very similar to Windows 7 though.

Here are the timings:

• 00:00 Power up and boot from DVD
• 00:03 Language selection
• 00:05 Codes entered, file copying starts
• 00:10 Reboots. "Installing devices", then "Getting system ready"
• 00:15 Reboots. Sets username and PC name. Gets Microsoft account details etc.
• 00:20 All done, logged in.