If your 64-bit Windows PC generates this error - “Windows Installer Service cannot be accessed and may not be installed correctly” when trying to install some programs, you should first read this Microsoft article. Following the steps in this article is a good way to fix any real underlying problem with the installer service.
But, if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, you may have a simple registry problem that is preventing the proper use of the installer service even though the installer service is porperly installed. In that case, a simple registry change may be the last remaining step you need to take to get back on track. Note: the following steps involve editing the registry on your PC. If you make a mistake while editing the registry, your machine may no longer boot properly, so don’t try this unless you have backed up your PC!

1. close all running programs
2. Bring up the “run” prompt by holding down the “Windows” key and the letter “R” at the same time.
3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/MSIServer and right-click on WOW64
4. select “Modify” and change the Value data from “1″ to “0″
5. close regedit and re-boot the computer

Now try and re-install the programs you were having trouble with before.

Sometimes when I work on a computer that is running very very slowly, I see lots of toolbars installed in the web browser. Each individual toolbar might be nice, but you can definitely have too much of a good thing. Multiple toolbars can slow down your web browsing, cause your computer to become unstable, and even make it hard to see all of a web page on the screen at one time. How do folks end up with so many toolbars?

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An older Windows XP system can sometimes get into a state where complex software products do not install and uninstall properly. One thing to try when you have this situation is to make sure your XP system has the latest version of the Windows Installer. Microsoft has a KB article which describes the 4.5 version of the installer.

The downloads for various flavors of Windows can be obtained directly from Microsoft. Upgrading your Installer will ensure that you have the latest Microsoft fixes for the Installer component, and may possibly fix registry permission issues that are hampering some of your current attempts at installing third-party software packages.

Microsoft is making it a little less expensive for college students to get the right software at the right price to make both the college years and the transition to the working world a success. For only $59 you can get, direct from Microsoft, the full Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate package. This package includes all of the Office 2007 components, including Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Business Contact Manager, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, OneNote, and Groove. To qualify, the student needs to have a valid US college email address and be able to provide proof of enrollment upon request.

Don’t blow your budget on expensive software - take advantage of this great offer from Microsoft!

Sometimes in Outlook 2003, a red X will appear in your signature if you have an inline jpg embedded there. You carefully re-insert the image in your signature and it seems to work for awhile, displaying your singature properly, and then eventually it stops working correctly and then the red X comes back. If this is happening to you, this fix may help.

In this situation Outlook 2003 is storing images in emails in a temporary security folder. If you have an image called, say, image.jpg, Outlook will store this image temporarily in a folder. When Outlook saves this image, a filename such as image01.jpg, image02.jpg, image03.jpg, is used. The bug happens after 99 repetitions, when Outlook goes past image99.jpg. It cannot save the file, so it displays a red X. This little autoit script will clear the folder so that Outlook can start displaying the inline images in your signature properly. I have had good success in placing this program in the startup folder so it runs each time the user logs on to their computer. This program should not be run while Outlook is running.

The source code can be found here. Compile it and enjoy!

Recently a customer had an issue with travelling back and forth between two networks with his laptop. One network (his home) used dynamic IP, the other (his office) used static IP. The constant messing about with the control panel and network connections was causing him grief, and sometimes he would forget the numbers to key in. So, I wrote two scripts and placed them on his desktop.
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Microsoft has made the upgrade version of the next version of Windows, Windows 7, available for pre-order at a reduced price. The response has been terrific - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade is now the #1-selling software item on Amazon. During the promotional period it is available for only $49. The Windows 7 upgrade advisor from Microsoft is a free download which can tell you if your PC has what it takes to run Windows 7.

Update: the promotional price has expired.

Vista has a nice Games Window that you can easily access by clicking on the start button. It is usually located on the right - below “Documents”, “Pictures”, and “Music”.

Sometimes it seems that for no particular reason, launching this Games Window takes a long time. And then when you select a game to launch, such as Spider Solitaire, the game takes a long time to load. There is an easy fix for this.
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Microsoft, like many companies right now, is looking to trim its sails a bit. The company just announced that after 19 years it is pulling the plug on Microsoft Money. They will stop selling it after June 30 2009, and will stop supporting it in another year or two.

We recommend anyone using Microsoft Money begin transitioning to another product such as Quicken right away. Quicken, from Intuit, has been in business 25 years and is the current category leader in the space of personal financial management software. There are tools for converting your data, but they are currently limited.

According to USA Today, Microsoft and Intuit are working on a better transfer solution by fall of this year.

Sometimes Microsoft Outlook gets stuck in a loop trying to receive mail. There can be many causes of this, but often this situation is due to a bad piece of mail in the inbox on your mail server that Outlook and/or your Antivirus software just cannot process. The offending email may have a bad attachment/virus, or the email may be badly formatted in some other way.
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