03 Jan 11 Flash not working in Firefox? Solution: downgrade
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I had noticed that for some time Flash had not been displaying properly in Firefox. In fact, not displaying at all, yet behaving absolutely absolutely normally in Internet Explorer. I had ignored this but when you have to design web pages that require some Flash content the problem becomes impossible to ignore. I tried the usual Mozilla support forums and came across helpful pages such as ‘Flash not working properly after update to Firefox 3.6.7‘, but of course, the problem remained. I tried numerous other trouble shooting fixes, some of which involved uninstalling then reinstalling the Flash plugin while others involved creating a new user profile within Firefox. I’ve lost count of how many solutions I tried but none of them worked. The problem seems to be quite widespread judging by the number of people reporting to Mozilla that they too have this problem.
The solution was incredibly simple as is usually the case…
Tags: Add-ons, Adobe Flash, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Uninstaller, Windows, Windows Vista
05 May 10 Windows Desktop Search Solution for Vista
- Image via Wikipedia
At last! I have finally fixed the annoying indexing problem in Outlook 2007 that I’ve been obsessing about for the last few days. I must have trawled just about every site on the web with discussion on how to fix the problem including the automated Microsoft ‘Fixit‘ solutions with no success. Every time I tried to search in Outlook I got an indexing status message with thousands of entries to process and nothing happening. Going to the control panel > indexing options > advanced > rebuild index also had no effect. I got a message indicating indexing was not running due to user activity. I made sure I was doing absolutely nothing; still no success. Grrr. There are any number of solutions out there; going to control panel > administrative tasks > services > Windows Search , starting, stopping service, going to tools > instant search > search options in Outlook 07, selecting, deselecting folders to be indexed etc. etc. Still no effect. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The solution turned out to be very simple:
- Install Service Pack 2, unless you have already done so. If the ‘modify’ and ‘pause’ buttons are not available in control panel > indexing options reinstalling SP2 might well be the solution.
- Indexing options, Services > Windows Search all look okay but Outlook still won’t search? A corrupted registry is most likely the cause.
Download this registry update
*I found Internet Explorer was the best choice for downloading this update.
*Select ‘Open’ and allow the update to run
(it’s safe; it can be found in it’s orginal context here: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/85803-index-windows-search-service.html an excellent tutorial which I followed to the letter with no success.) - With SP2 installed and the registry update installed, my Outlook search now works perfectly, and I didn’t even need to restart my computer!
If your problem persists, rebuilding the index might be the way to go. Try this:
Tags: Control Panel, index, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Windows, search, search error, Service pack, SP2, Windows Explorer, Windows Registry, Windows Search, Windows Vista, Windows XP
25 Jun 09 Microsoft drives nails in its own coffin
- Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Does the release of products like Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 8 represent a massive blunder for Microsoft, or do the new innovations included in these software packages represent the way forward? It might all depend on who you ask. Users who have not spent a great deal of time using previous versions of Microsoft software may well like the new versions. There are surely some new features which can be quite cool such as very nifty formatting effects. Users who have become familiar with previous versions over the years are coming to quite different conclusions. I am in the latter group and Microsoft’s new line is certainly not getting an A from me.
Tags: Internet Explorer 8, menus, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 2007, navigation, ribbon, Steve Balmer, Windows Vista
