Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Edit Marketing Preferences of your new Outlook.com Address

q: Our customer just signed up for a new email address @outlook.com.  How can they edit their Marketing Preferences to reduce unwanted emails?

a: Follow these steps:


  1. Click on your name (top right)
  2. Click on "Account settings"
  3. Click "Notifications" Left sidebar
  4. Click 'Manage marketing preferences"
  5. Click "edit your preferences" at the bottom in blue
  6. Then you can un-check "Subscribed to Windows Live..." and check "Do not send me any newsletters..." or make whatever changes you like.
NOTE: As they mention, "Changes made to your newsletters and subscriptions may not be seen here immediately".

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Spiceworks is starting hangs after install

q: We've recently seen twice now Spiceworks 6.0 hang after installing at the screen "Spiceworks is starting..." How can you get past this?

a: Well the install was on Server 2008 whose IE settings are considerably higher than typical workstations.

  1. Add *.adobe.com & *.spiceworks.com to the trusted sites
  2. Visit  http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/ to install Adobe Flash on the Server
  3. Right-click on the Spiceworks Tray Icon and select Launch
  4. When this opens the site again, you might be prompted about Google Analytics you can add those subsequent sites to your trusted sites as well, or simply ignore them.
  5. Finally when the site loads, you will be prompted to create your account and you're on you're way.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission

Q: We are setting this message in our Event logs
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} and APPID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} to the user DOMAIN\USERNAME SID (S-1-5-21-1832317618-3868561790-2811425143-7650) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
A: We've seen this for years and the fix is always the same:

  1. Open Regedit, to identify which program the CLSID is referring.
  2. Search for {61738644 (the first part of the string above, you can also search for the entire string).
  3. You'll find the (Default) Value for this registry key is "IIS WAMREG admin Service"
  4. Open DCOMCNFG
    1. Expand "Component Service"
    2. Expand "Computers"
    3. Expand "My Computer"
    4. Expand "DCOM Config"
    5. Locate "IIS WAMREG admin Service"
    6. Right click on "IIS WAMREG admin Service" and select Properties
    7. Click on the Security Tab
    8. In the "Launch and Activation Permissions section, be sure (X) Customize is selected & click EDIT
    9. In the "Launch Permission" window click "Add" to add the account mentioned in the error message above.
    10. The complaint is that the account does not have "Local Activation permission" so simply make sure the account has that Permission enabled.
    11. NOTE: We usually enable "Local Launch" as well as "Local Activation" for this account.
  5. Then you're done. Reboot or IISRESET and try the site again and look for that message.