When attempting to create a custom border in Microsoft Publisher XP/2002/2003, limited users get the error message “Publisher cannot open the file” when saving the border.

This does not apply to administrative users.

The error message is in fact deceptive as it is a write and not a read permissions error. Limited users do not have write permissions to the :\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office 1x\\1033\\PUBBRD directory.

Simply change these permissions to give local users modify permission on the directory and limited users will be able to create custom borders.

(Please note that x will vary with the version of office you have installed and that Office 12 may appear when the Office 2007 compatability pack is installed, you should change the directory permissions within the Office 11 folder).

This isn”t a problem I”ve seen documented anywhere else, and may be specific to our environment, but is one I wanted to document for future reference by anyone who may be experiencing similar problems.

Users attempting to read e-mail using Outlook Web Access at weekends were greeted with an incomplete page, entirely without graphics, and were unable to properly read e-mail.

Having previously installed PRTG Network Monitor I set up notifications outside of working hours and included HTTP sensors for each of our primary servers. These simply attempt to connect to IIS on port 80 and report back if unsuccessful.

We had noticed alerts reading “HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized” starting on Saturday and then disappearing on Monday morning. Looking in more detail at the time stamps of these alerts revealed that the “up” state for the sensor was being reached few minutes after midnight on the Monday. As PRTG was set to scan every ten minutes it became apparent that the problem had disappeared on the very first scan after midnight.

This led me to investigate the built in accounts used by IIS in order to serve content. These are usually found in the users OU of Active Directory and in the format-

IUSR_ “Built-in account for anonymous access to Internet Information Services”
IWAM_ “Built-in account for Internet Information Services to start out of process applications”

For each of the servers that were reporting “HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized” these accounts Login Hours were set to deny login at midnight on Friday and permit it again from midnight Sunday.

Adjusting these Login Hours in Active Directory to permit login for the entire week immediately resolved the issue (no services need to be restarted).

Computers use file systems to organise the data held on a hard drive. The theory behind these systems is not unlike those used in filing cabinets in offices and is it perhaps useful to think of the hard drive in your computer as a filing cabinet in a busy office.

Like the filing cabinet, our hard drives rarely remain the same for long. Software is frequently installed or removed, and files are almost constantly saved, deleted or modified . Sometimes the user initiates this change (saving or deleting a Word file for example), other times changes are made to system files in the background- without the user ever becoming aware.

Unlike a physical filing cabinet, where labelling and grouping of files is important to enable them to be found efficiently, files are written to the first available area of free space on the disk. Sometimes this area of free space is smaller than the file to be written and the file has to be split. Any file that is stored on two or more areas of the disk in this way is said to be fragmented.

As a disk becomes more full, like a filing cabinet, areas of free space become smaller- increasing the chances of fragmentation.

The problem is compounded as disks are not typically re-organised when files are deleted, leaving many small areas of free space. Imagine a filing cabinet where files are removed without the remaining files being pushed together- leaving gaps between files.

Defragmentation is the process of re-organising the disk, moving files around the disk to bring the fragments of files together and create larger continuous areas of free space, reducing future fragmentation.

This can have significant performance benefits as file access time is reduced, causing programs to load faster and the system as a whole to become more responsive.

Windows includes a simple utility to defragment your hard drive. This utility is not able to defragment or move files in use, such as those used by Windows, so some power users prefer to buy commercial utilities that boot from external storage such as a CD or DVD and are able to defragment a hard drive in full. Despite this the ultility is entirely adequate for the majority of users and can make a significant difference to the performance of your computer.

To defragment your Hard Drive in Windows XP

1. Open “My Computer” from the Start Menu or Desktop as appropriate.
2. Select a Hard Disk Drive you wish to defragment and right click on it, selecting “Properties” from the context menu (figure 1).



3. Click on the “Tools” tab on the Local Disk Properties screen. (figures 2 below)



4. Click on the “Defragment Now…” button (figure 3 below)



5. In the “Disk Defragmenter” window select the volume (disk) you wish to defragment and click on the “Analyze” button (figure 4).



6. Analysis may take some time, to complete- especially on large or full drives, or where defragmentation has not recently been completed. After the Disk Defragmenter tool has analyzed the drive it will present you with a summary stating either “You should defragment this volume” or “You do not need to defragment this volume” (figure 5)



7. Click on the “Defragment” button to begin defragmentation of the volume. Defragmentation may take several hours to complete, especially with large or full drives or where defragmentation has not been completed for some time. Some users choose to leave a drive defragmenting overnight. Alternatively you can defragment a drive in the background while you work, although frequent file access and/or changes will reduce the effectiveness of the defragmentation. Defragmentation can safely be paused or stopped at any time during the process by clicking on the relevant button on the Disk Defragmenter screen.

Nb At least 15% free space is required on the disk you wish to defragment

Defragmenting a Drive in Windows Vista

In order to access some documents or programs more quickly it is often useful to create a desktop shortcut, allowing immediate access to the file without having to find your way through folders to the location where it is stored.

This short blog post will provide a simple walk through, helping you create shortcuts quickly and easily to optimise your work.

Method 1: From the desktop

1. Right click on an area of the desktop where there is not already a shortcut
2. Select New from the context menu (figure 1)



3. Select Shortcut from that list
4. The Create Shortcut Wizard then launches (figure 2).
5. Click on the “Browse…” button



6. Navigate to the folder where your file is stored, select it and click “Ok” (figure 3)



7. Click “Next” on the Create Shortcut Wizard screen (figure 4)

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8. If you want to chose a different name for your shortcut, type it in the “Type a name for this shortcut now” box now (figure 5). Otherwise leave it as the file name.



9. Click on the Finish button
10. A shortcut to your file will have been created on the desktop (figure 6). Click on the shortcut to open the file.

In the next blog post we”ll look at how you can create a shortcut from the file itself.

Warning: Modifying the registry can result in unexpected and undesirable changes to your operating system. Always ensure you have taken a full backup of your current registry configuration prior to making any changes, and that you are able to restore this in the event of problems. Inexperienced users should not attempt to modify the registry without assistance.

Following a share name or server change you are unable to delete network printers with the following error message-

“Printer cannot be removed. Either the printer name was typed incorrectly, or the specified printer has lost its connection to the server. For more information, click Help”

To resolve this-

1.Stop the spooler service (net stop spooler or services.msc)

2. Click on the Start Menu and select “Run”

3.Type “Regedit” into the dialogue box and click “Ok” or press “Enter”

4.Navigate to the following key-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \\ SOFTWARE \\ Microsoft \\ Windows NT \\ CurrentVersion \\ Print \\ Providers \\ LanMan Print Services \\ Servers

5. Delete the server (in the case of a server change) or the printer (in the case of a share name change).

6. Restart the computer and the printer should have disappeared from “Printers and Faxes”.

If necessary the driver can then be removed within “Printers and Faxes” by clicking on “File” > “Server Properties”, selecting the “Drivers” tab and clicking the “Remove” button with the driver selected.