Q: What’s more annoying than reloading your operating system?
A: Getting Outlook to relearn who you send emails to.

When composing a new message, as you key the recipient into the “To” field, Outlook will automatically attempt to find & match the intented recipent with a history of previously sent messages. This history is stored in a nicknames file. In Outlook 2003, the nicknames file is located in c:\Documents and Settings\ %profile%\ Application Data\ Microsoft\ Outlook\ Outlook.nk2

Finding it might be easier with Windows search, though. I’ve seen this file grow to a very significant size in some cases. Guard it with your life, unless you don’t mind reteaching Outlook your recipent list for another 6 months or more. You’ll be glad you did when it finally corrupts itself.

Sometimes when a PC has difficulty reading a CD/DVD, Windows will default to a “safe” mode or PIO mode on that particular IDE channel unexpectedly. Symptoms of such a problem are constantly choppy audio and unsatisfactory performance in general. These conditions will be far worse than standard performance.

To check for certain if a system has defaulted to PIO mode, open up the Device Manager and look at the properties of the primary and secondary IDE channels. That is, Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers > Advanced tab. If you see anything that resembles PIO mode instead of Ultra DMA or UDMA mode 0-5, there is a potential performance issue.

The best way to fix this is to completely uninstall the IDE channel in Windows Device Manager. Yep, just right-click on that sucker and uninstall it. Don’t worry, Windows will detect and install the device again automatically upon system restart. Your system should once again go back to UDMA mode and speed up significantly as normal, at least as far as audio/general performance is concerned.

Have you ever asked your friend Google for help with a specific error message to find that somebody on Experts Exchange has already had the exact same question answered?

Rad–let me see it! Not so fast there, son. First you must “sign up (and pay) to view the accepted solution” like everybody else. And to get you to sign up, we’re gonna use some crazy Javascript/DHTML to garble the text so you can’t read the solution.

Well, son, here’s a tip for you.

View the entire thread as it was meant to be read by clicking on Cached in Google’s search results. Hey, if Experts Exchange didn’t want people doing this, they’d be smart about it and add an exception to their META tags:

<META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”>

Now that you’re informed, proceed to have an EE free-for-all by including ‘site:www.experts-exchange.com’ along with your search terms.

The Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows Server 2003 is meant to log when the system was shutdown or restarted and why. The problem is that it’s annoying as hell when you’re working on a new system, or for whatever reason a Windows Server is constantly issued with restarts.

Edit your default domain policy (for a lot of servers), or the local group policy (gpedit.msc) for one machine and turn if off as follows:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Display Shutdown Event Tracker: disabled

Screen Shot

I’m in! Last year, I raised $575 for the Aspen Ride for the Cure. This year, my goal is to break $1000!

Be a part of something special! Donate $10, $20, $50, or more for my efforts on September 8th, 2007.

Last year, I had 4 flat tires and my right pedal broke on the second climb in the rain, yet I finished the 100 mile course in 9:10. This year, I endeavor to finish in less than 7 hours! Smooth sailing is anticipated without flat tires or mechanical issues.

Make your tax deductible contribution by clicking on the link above. Do it. You’ll feel good inside.