Live Messenger Error 2771 After Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)

Subsequent to successfully installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), starting Windows Live Messenger (WLM) may pop up an install error. The error reads: “The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2771.”

Error 2771 means there is a missing component. The simplest fix is to let WLM’s installer repair the issue automatically. If, however, the error dialog keeps popping up every time WLM is started then the suggested fix is to uninstall WLM from Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel and reinstall the package from Microsoft’s website. This should correct the issue.

On a side note, some users out there don’t want Microsoft cluttering the Windows desktop with ads via WLM so they install A-Patch. The moral and ethical dilemma is up to the reader to sort out but Microsoft is providing instant messaging on an ad-supported model. If too many users do this then it could affect everyone’s free access. Choose wisely!

May 6, 2008 | Filed Under How-To | Leave a Comment 

“Bluetooth Device Not Found” After Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Install

My Dell-branded Bluetooth module disappeared after installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). The fix for this solution is pretty simple as long as your device was working prior to installing SP3. The steps are as follows:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type %windir%\inf in the Open box, and then click OK.
  2. Find a set of eight files beginning with “BTH.INF”.
  3. Move following files to a temporary folder:
    • bth.inf, bth.pnf
    • bthpan.inf, bthpan.pnf
    • bthprint.inf, bthprint.pnf
    • bthspp.inf, bthspp.pnf
  4. Click Start, click Run, type devmgmt.msc in the Open box, and then click OK.
  5. Expand the list under Bluetooth Radio by clicking the “plus” sign.
  6. Right-click “Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator” and click uninstall. Click OK on the next dialog box.
  7. Right-click “Generic Bluetooth Radio” (it may read “Dell TrueMobile Bluetooth Module” or something similar) and click “Update Driver…”
  8. If a dialog box comes up asking “Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?” click “No, not this time”, and then click NEXT.
  9. On the next screen pick “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)” and click NEXT.
  10. Click “Search for the best driver in these locations.” and put a check-mark on “Include this location in the search:”. Then click BROWSE.
  11. Find the location where the Dell WIDCOMM drivers were installed. On my system this is “C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\bin”. Click NEXT.
  12. Windows will now install the drivers.
  13. Restart your system if necessary.

Follow these instructions at your own risk! Make sure you backup your computer before attempting this procedure. I can’t be held responsible if you screw up your computer.

May 4, 2008 | Filed Under How-To | Leave a Comment 

Windows Updaters: Where Is the Unified API?

In the last couple of years nearly every program comes with its own updating software. Don’t believe me? Try Apple Software Update, Adobe Updater, Google Updater, Mcafee AutoUpdate, and the list goes on. All of these pieces of software have their individualized settings and behaviors with no unified interface which leads to confusion and missed updates–some of which are critical for security.

Several attempts have been made to consolidate this process with the ultimate goal of simplicity for the end-user. Examples include CNet’s defunct CatchUp, VersionTracker, Secunia PSI, and FileHippo.com Update Checker. The one underlying theme is none of these systems catch everything on their own and most of them fail to detect some software altogether.

I wonder why Microsoft hasn’t addressed this issue especially since they’ve claimed pursuing a security-centric approach with the Windows platform. Microsoft should provide a framework for a System Update Center for third party applications and encourage its usage through its development tools. A robust API will give software developers the ability to tailor the system for their applications while allowing end-users to be free of the particulars. How great would it be just to push a button and have all the needed updates install in the background without any further intervention? Gone will be the days of multiple updaters runnings in the background chewing up resources.

April 27, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment 

Windows XP SP3 Leaked onto Bittorrent and Usenet

UPDATE (5.6.2008): Microsoft has updated the TechNet article detailing official download locations. If you are updating more than one computer then you can download the full 300+ meg version here. Otherwise, for single computers go through Windows Update.

As expected Microsoft’s upcoming Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) has been leaked onto Bittorrent and Usenet ahead of the official release to the general public.

The official filename is: WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe. (MD5 Hash: BB25707C919DD835A9D9706B5725AF58)

SP3 doesn’t offer many new features. Of the new features it does offer, the backported items from Windows Vista leave me a bit concerned about security application compatibility. These should all be discovered and addressed between now and June 10 (the official release date of SP3 on Windows Update) as I’m expecting to see a surge of SP3-related posts in all of the usual technical help forums. This makes the job of us close enough to the bleeding edge to live vicariously though early adopters without getting burned. I’m not saying don’t update, but I’m suggesting that we wait until the official release so the computer whizzes and troubleshooters of the world have a stab at SP3 and any of its unknown problems.

As expected, there are early reports of endless reboot loops in botched SP3 upgrades due to an error in GDI32.DLL. If you do go the route of upgrading via leaked copies then be sure to backup your system using Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost. Also make sure you’ve review the legality of using leaked software in your jurisdiction.

April 23, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment 

Corsair Flash Voyager: Lifetime Warranty

During the last few years we’ve seen price competition in the electronic gadget arena become so fierce that the bottom line often times trumps customer service. That is why I’m so excited and surprised by the package that came in the mail today. Let me explain…

In December 2006 a European friend of mine asked me to bring him back the bigger USB flash drive money could buy in the good ole USA. At the time, the 8gig Corsair Flash Voyager USB drive was the beast that best met his storage requirements. He used it for about 9 long months before the drive fell apart due to excessive wear-and-tear. (The fact that is lasted 9 months in his possession is a feat in and of itself but that’s not the point.) The drive was only showing 4 gigs of usable space and would cause the USB subsystem to become extremely unstable on any Windows machine after it was plugged in.

On yet another hiatus back to California, he gave me the drive hoping there would be some way to get it warrantied. My personal assessment of the device was rather bleak but I took it back with me anyway. After several months of procrastinating and delays I asked for an RMA form on Corsair’s website. At first they asked me to do a low-level format but that failed. The next email was a link to a shipping label and instructions on how to send it in. Corsair did a wonderful job of keeping me up-to-date with the progress of the RMA through automated email alerts. After two weeks, I have a brand new USB drive sealed in a plastic display case.

I’m speechless. They not only honored the warranty but sent a brand new drive! This sort of customer service is worth the little extra cost. As a result of this experience I’ll be sure to heavily favor purchasing other Corsair products for myself and give recommendations to friends/family for their headache-free approach to customers.

Note: I wasn’t paid at all for this entry nor did Corsair know I have a personal blog. Googling the drive shows others who have had similar experiences. Corsair is the real deal.

April 17, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment 

Upgrading to WordPress 2.5… Slowly!

I’m slowly upgrading the site to WordPress 2.5. Not everything works but the posts should be viewable. If you catch any fatal errors then drop me a comment with details.

I’m in no rush to get this done because this blog has always been a sandbox for a hobby that has absolutely nothing to do with my professional pursuits, training, or education. However, I’m still flattered by the occasional blogger who wrongly suggests this blog is “aimed at the IT professional, corporate surfer.” Thank you–though it may be a few more months until my next update. Ha!

April 1, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Safari-gate Continued: Disabling Apple’s Second Update for Windows

I’m unamused by Apple’s desire to push Safari 3.1 down the throats of Windows users. I, too, was surprised by Apple’s move. While in Europe a week and a half ago we were trying to fix a friend’s computer that was badly infected with viruses and malware. When we finally got everything cleaned up Apple Software Update wanted to install Safari 3.1. I searched the hard drive, registry, and other places to see if we missed a phantom Safari install somewhere but couldn’t find it anywhere. After an exhaustive search, we all gave up and figured it would be more productive to head out for dinner. Had I known Apple was dubiously sending out updates then we could have saved ourselves a lot of time–unfortunately the blogosphere hadn’t picked up on the issue at that point. Anyway, the fundamental issues have been discussed elsewhere ad infinitum. My opinion is that Apple needs to change its software update model so that new products are opt-in while currently installed products are opt-out.

Playing the role of the family IT guy can be quite difficult and I’ve set up each machine I “remotely administer” such that updates are done automatically. Apple Software Update was on my safe list until Safari-gate. Now its a matter of making sure Apple doesn’t get Safari 3.1 installed on any machines especially because of the exploits being found in the browser. I’m not very happy with Apple and they have yet to pull the updates so a permanent solution is necessary that still allows iTunes updates.

Dan over at dcunningham.net has done some great investigative work and found registry keys that can be used to ignore updates pushed by Apple Software Update. His solution is to block updates via Product ID in a REG_MULTI_SZ key named Update_Ignore_List. Unfortunately, this is a temporary measure. The first Apple Safari 3.1 update was labeled 061-4516. A second update is now showing with a label of 061-4588.

This key below should work to block all known Safari 3.1 updates as of April 1, 2008:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Software Update]
“Update_Ignore_List”=hex(7):30,00,36,00,31,00,2d,00,34,00,35,00,31,00,36,00,00,\
00,30,00,36,00,31,00,2d,00,34,00,35,00,38,00,38,00,00,00,00,00

Because Apple could push more updates at any time this necessitates removing Apple Software Update from the scheduled tasks folder on Windows until a more permanent solution is found.

In one last interesting twist from Apple, it seems like there is no way (known to me) to block updates machine-wide. Granted this could be a Windows installation issue on my end but I’m severely doubting Apple at the moment. In Dan’s solution above the blocking is done in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) hive not HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM). If I replicate the Update_Ignore_List key in HKLM for a machine-wide block while deleting the key in HKCU, then Apple Software Update still shows Safari 3.1 in the update list. Maybe I’m doing something wrong? Only further testing will tell.

This is the key I’m using if you want to test it yourself:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Software Update]
“Update_Ignore_List”=hex(7):30,00,36,00,31,00,2d,00,34,00,35,00,31,00,36,00,00,\
00,30,00,36,00,31,00,2d,00,34,00,35,00,38,00,38,00,00,00,00,00

April 1, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment 

Update for Windows Live Photo Gallery (KB 946486) Failed

This past patch Tuesday resulted in a whole host of phone calls from family members regarding a failed update to Windows Live Photo Gallery (KB 946486) on Windows XP SP2 machines. One of my laptops failed as well. The fix took a little while to figure out and is somewhat tedious.

  1. Download and install Microsoft Windows Install Cleanup.
  2. Once installed, run the program. Scroll down to (All Users) Windows Live Photo Gallery and click Remove.

    Note: Be very careful with this utility because it can do a lot of damage. If you’re not comfortable with the possible reprocussions then please get in touch with someone who has prior experience. I am not responsible if you ruin your computer.

  3. Exit the program once its done removing Windows Live Photo Gallery.
  4. Download and install a fresh copy of Windows Live Photo Gallery.
  5. Theoretically you should have the latest version. However, on two systems rerunning Microsoft Update after the above procedure yielded update KB 946486 which ultimately updated the software to the most current version.

March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | 1 Comment 

Truphone Forces Telephone Number Change on Early Adopters

I’ve been singing praises about the UK-based VoIP company Truphone to all of my friends and would call it the killer application for the latest generation of VoIP-equipped Nokia phones. To my dismay I received the following e-mail from Truphone Support this morning:

Truphone numbers are changing

Hello,

We’d like to give you advance notice that we will soon be switching all UK customers to Truphone’s very own new number range.

When this happens your phone number will change from 07624… to one beginning 07978…

Switching to a new set of numbers allows us to grow and evolve the service. As an early subscriber (thank you!), you were one of the few people to be assigned a number from our old 07624 range.

You don’t need to do anything yet. We will contact you again shortly to let you know your new number so you can begin telling your friends and contacts.

If you have any questions or queries, please visit the mobilevoipforum or email support@truphone.com

Thank you very much for all your support,

All at Truphone

Like any responsible business Truphone was prudent in giving a heads up to its customers regarding the upcoming change. I may be jumping the gun but no where do I see any indication of a concrete migration plan to make this change easy for us early adopters.

Number changes are difficult to handle in any medium be it VoIP, traditional landline, or mobile phone. This situation would be ideal for a Plaxo-like central address book service where I could update my contact details for all of my friends but not everyone uses Plaxo. Actually most of my friends don’t even sync their phones with their computers. Unfortunately this means that I have to cater to the lowest common denominator by spending several hours calling, emailing, and texting everyone before this change becomes permanent. Even then it’s almost guaranteed that I will miss someone.

I’d appreciate Truphone publicly post answers to its customer’s questions in the coming days. Some of the items I’d like to know are:

  1. Will there be free call forwarding for all calls originating from traditional mobile and landline calls for the first few weeks to our new Truphone numbers?
  2. Once forwarding ends, will there be a recording when someone calls my number alerting them of my new contact details for a few more weeks?
  3. Will the old SIP URI starting with 447624xxxxxx@truphone.com be terminated as well? If so, how long will forwarding work?
  4. Is there an option to maintain the SIP URI indefinitely once we are moved over to the new number? If not, how long will it be active?
  5. Is Truphone offering a way for me to send SMS messages out to my entire phonebook alerting them of my new number without forcing me to pay 0.07 GBP (about 14 US cents) per message?
  6. Rumors have persisted for quite some time that the new 07978 number range doesn’t properly support SMS. Has this been rectified?
  7. Has Truphone finally organized with OFCOM to bring down costs of incoming calls and to get the new number range included in the bundle of included minutes with mobile and landline operators?

I’m hoping to have answers to these questions so everything is clear before they flip the switch. Truphone can continue to set the benchmark of how VoIP companies conduct themselves by making this transition as easy and painless for its customers as possible. With this said I’m hoping this outstanding service that I’ve come to rely on for my daily communication doesn’t let me down.

January 25, 2008 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | Leave a Comment 

Microsoft Outlook 2007 SP1 Crash in GDIPLUS.DLL

Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is definitely a must-have upgrade for serious users of Outlook 2007. The speed increases are staggering on my aging Windows XP system. Prior to SP1, I had no other issues with Office 2007 and found it to be quite stable. To my surprise last night Outlook crashed when I opened a Microsoft TechNet email. For those of you unfamiliar with TechNet emails, they are the heavily HTML based and contain several images. The exact error message read:

The file gdiplus.dll is incompatible with Microsoft Outlook. Install Outlook again.

The Event Viewer had a new entry “Event ID: 1000″ with “Microsoft Officer 12″ as the source that read:

Faulting application outlook.exe, version 12.0.6212.1000, stamp 46e03e45, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, stamp 00000000, debug? 0, fault address 0×3be666f5.

A search on Google yielded a few links archiving the same thread from back in March 2007 which didn’t result in a definitive fix.

Upon restarting Outlook, the email opened fine so I wasn’t able to replicate the problem. I ran Office Diagnostics anyway. Hopefully it was an isolated incident that won’t be coming back any time soon. If anyone else experiences this issue, then please post details of what you were doing, version numbers, and system specs. I’ll update the entry as I get more information.

December 13, 2007 | Filed Under Tech/Gadgets | 7 Comments 

Next Page →