MS Office Removal Tool

Having trouble removing or uninstalling Microsoft Office, there is a removal tool

which can be found here.

Word 2007 and 2010 losing spaces in a document

Apparently there are incompatabilities between Word 2007 and 2010 which result in spaces being randomly dropped in a document.

There's an article here, which tells you how to sort it.

Fix an unmountable boot volume

How to troubleshoot "unmountable boot volume" in XP.

If you are unable to start Windows and get an error message saying you have an "unmountable boot volume," this can be caused by a corrupt boot.ini file or by a defective hard drive.

To troubleshoot the problem, do the following:

Boot into the recovery console at startup, using your Windows XP CD.

In the recovery console, type chkdsk /p If disk errors are discovered, you may need to replace the hard drive.

If no disk errors are discovered, reboot the computer and go back into the recovery console.

Type the following command at the command prompt:

bootcfg /rebuild

The bootcfg utility will scan the drive and display the results.

When the prompt asks if you want to add installation to the boot list (Yes/No/All), type Y and press ENTER.

When asked to "Enter Load Identifier," type the name of the operating system (for example, Windows XP Professional) and press ENTER.

When the prompt says "Enter OS Load options," type Fastdetect and press ENTER.

Remove the Windows XP installation CD from the drive and type Exit.

Reboot the computer. Windows XP should start normally.

Windows 7 password expiry time

Had a Windows 7 machine which forced the customer to change the password every 90 days and unlike older versions of Windows, there was no option to change this in Administrative Tools.

So it's back to the command line, run this as administrator:

net accounts /MaxPWAge:Unlimited

That means you won't need to change it again.

Copying data from a corrupt user profile

Occasionally user profiles become corrupt.

You can copy data from your old profile to a new one, to preserve your settings, preferences and documents.

Here's how:

First create a new profile by logging on with administrative credentials and clicking Start | Control Panel | User Accounts

1. Under "Pick a Task," click "Create a new account," enter a name, and click Next.
2. Select the account type and click "Create account."
3. Now log on with an account that is not the one you're copying the files from or to.
4. Right click Start, select Windows Explorer, and click Folder Options.
5. On the View tab, check "Show hidden files and folders," uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System files," and click OK.
6. Navigate to 
7. Press and hold the CTRL key to click every subfolder and file in this folder except: Ntuser.dat, Ntuser.dat.log, and Ntuser.ini.
8. Click Edit | Copy or press CTRL+C or right click and select Copy.
9. Navigate to the :\Documents and Settings folder again and find the folder with the user name of the new profile. Open that folder.
10. Click Edit | Paste or press CTRL+V or right click and select Paste.
11. Log off and then log on with the new user account. This will transfer your preferences (wallpaper, desktop icons), settings and documents from the My Documents folder. This will not import your email messages to the new profile.

How to remove programs from the "open with" menu

Windows XP tries to be helpful. If you open a file with a particular extension using a certain program, it will add that program to the "Open with" right click menu options forever after when you click "Open with." What if you have programs in that menu that you would like to get rid of? Maybe you tried to open a file with the wrong program, and now there it is, stuck in the "Open with" options. Here's how to fix that:First, log on as an administrator and open the registry editor.

Back up the registry key you're going to edit, using the Export command in the file menu.

Navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

This will display a list of all the file extensions that are registered, shown as folders in the left pane.

Scroll down and find the file extension that you want to edit.

Click the white arrow beside it to expand the subfolders.

Select the subfolder labeled OpenWithList

In the right pane, you'll see the names of programs in the Data column. Right click the name of the program you want to remove from the list.

Click Delete.

At the "Are you sure?" prompt, click Yes.

Do this for all programs that you want to remove from the list for this file extension. Close the registry editor.

Now the extra programs shouldn't show up when you click the Open With menu.