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When you try to open a file in Vista and the OS doesn’t recognize the file extension because it’s not associated with an installed program, a dialog box pops up that gives you the option to "Use the Web service to find the correct program" or "Select a program from a list of installed programs." Most of us want to do the latter, and so you have to go through that extra click to get to your list of programs.

When you try to right click a network connection in the Network Connections folder in Windows XP and select Properties, you get an error message that says "an unexpected error occurred". Not very descriptive, so what is the problem?  The most common cause of this problem is damaged registry settings that prevent you from viewing the network connection’s properties.

I ran into an interesting problem recently with a client who was trying to upload a file for a Live Meeting in which she was the presenter. Her presentation was created in Power Point 2007 and had the extension .pptx. When she attempted to upload the file to Live Meeting she was prompted to install an ActiveX control to convert the .pptx file to a Live Meeting (.lmp) file. The problem came when installing the ActiveX file, when she clicked on the link to install the ActiveX file, the process started but then would come back with an error saying that the ActiveX control could not be installed.

If you need to reinstall Windows XP and only have the original disk you are in for a long process to get the operating system installed and up to date. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of security patches and updates released for Windows XP since its release in 2001. So, you could install XP with the original disk, then install the latest service pack and updates, but you may run into problems such as the fact that the original XP doesn’t recognize all of your large hard disk. The best way to reduce installation time and avoid potential problems is to "slipstream" the service pack files into the original version of XP. What you end up with is an installation media with all the service pack files already included.

Sometimes when you try to share a folder on an Windows XP computer, you may receive an error message that says "As a security measure, Windows has disabled remote access to this computer. However you can enable remote access and safely share files by running the Network Setup Wizard." This is caused by a local policy setting, read on for the step by step instructions for resolving this problem…