Dell 9020 3 displays

I have a customer that would like 3 monitors, for whatever reason.
The Dell 9020 is capable of this, and this is how I got it to work.
No additional video cards.
Using VGA and both display ports.
The customer has VGA monitors (as opposed to DVI)
So first, I bought two displayport to VGA cables:



I found it cheaper on their website: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10246&cs_id=1024609&p_id=6019&seq=1&format=2

Its running the latest BIOS (A03) and the intel 4600 video driver from Dell:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails/Product/optiplex-9020-desktop?driverId=1PRMJ&osCode=W864&fileId=3281932246&languageCode=en&categoryId=VI
No other changes were done in BIOS.

I had originally tried to use a PCI dual monitor card and the on-board, but this wasn't possible.  So I had to remove the display driver and reinstall the Intel driver.  After the reboot it worked and I now have display on all three.

Tada ( I tried to get the monitors cables and computer in the same pic)

Outlook 2007 Can't display the dialog box when access the Print Dialog box

Got a new one today. 
When access the print dialog box, a user was getting an popup saying "Can't display the dialog box"
I initially did my regular fix all for outlook deleting the .ost and any other non-.pst files, and I could get to the dialog box one time, but the error came back after that.
Through some searching I found it is tied to a file called OutlPrnt.
Outlook 2003/XP file location:
\Documents and Settings\(user)\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook 
Outlook 2007/XP file location: 
\Documents and Settings\(user)\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook 
Outlook 2007/Vista/Win7 file location: 
\Users\(user)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook 
Outlook 2010/XP file location:
\Documents and Settings\(user)\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook 
Outlook 2010/Vista/Win7 file locations: 
\Users\(user)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook 

Removing an entry from boot loader

I had a workstation setup with Server 2008 that I was running some testing on, somewhere along the line the computer became confused and thought multiple OS's were on the computer, but when looking at their partitions they were empty.  So I wanted to delete them.  Come to find out there is no boot.ini file, and that I have to go in through something called bcdedit.
So after some googling, I found the command I needed.
Bcdedit /delete {boot loader identifier}
Enter CMD as admin, and type BCDEDIT, this will give you the list of your boot loaders.  The loader you're currently in is listed as {current}, if this is the load you want to keep, don't delete that one.
Located the identifiers and type them into the boot loader identifier portion of the above script.   Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Boom, all done.

itunes.msi is missing

First, screw you iTunes.
Second
If you get an error that is asking you to locate an itunes.msi file, don't worry.  Its a simple fix.
There are places that tell you to run some MS installer program that will repair it, and the link to it is the dumb Fix It handyman that they have.
(continue at your own risk)
A quick fix would be going into the registry, and searching for itunes.msi.  When you find the key that has it, delete the folder that its in.  The folder will appear open in the left pane.
Hit F3 to find the next instance, rinse and repeat (delete the folder containing the reference to itunes.msi)
Then search for quicktime.msi, and continue the key deletion.
Once you're done, got to www.itunes.com and reinstall iTunes.

One instance after doing this, I got "apple application support error 2"
 but this fix worked for me:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17718475#17718475
Download and save a copy of the iTunesSetup.exe (or iTunes64setup.exe) installer file to your hard drive:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Download and install the free trial version of WinRAR:

http://www.rarlab.com/

Right-click the iTunesSetup.exe (or iTunes64Setup.exe), and select "Extract to iTunesSetup" (or "Extract to iTunes64Setup"). WinRAR will expand the contents of the file into a folder called "iTunesSetup" (or "iTunes64Setup").

Go into the folder and doubleclick the AppleApplicationSupport.msi to do a standalone AAS install.

Dell Inspiron 600m won't boot

I recently had an Inspiron 600m that wouldn't boot.
Press the power button, nothing.
I had it plugged into power, and the battery charging light would illuminate.
After hitting the power button, the Power and Hard Drive lights would illuminate for a moment, and then shut off, leaving me with the battery charging light.

To get it to boot up again I did the following:
Removed AC and battery, held power for 15-20 seconds
Resat memory (I had 2 sticks so I just swapped them)
Replaced battery and plugged back into AC power and it started up.

Symantec Backup Exec, the selection of user shares is disabled

Setting up backup exec 11d, I got this error:

 So I follow the directions like a good little minion, only to find that this:

 Double and triple checking didn't make it any better...  Network and Security are not showing up.
After some searching I thought maybe this was because I was running Backup Exec 11d Quickstart.  But after a little more digging, I found that wasn't it at all.  It was simply a preference setting.

So back in options, I went to settings like so:

 And at the bottom of this screen there is a radial button that was on 'Simple' instead of 'Full'

 So I changed that to full and confirmed out.  And would you look at that, Network and Security is there!

 I don't know if anyone uses backup exec 11d anymore, but if you do, I hope this was useful :)

Exchange 2003, Purge and Reconnect greyed out

Ok, so I'm a total noob with this exchange stuff.  I recently had an issue where a mailbox didn't delete when a user was deleted.  I was able to locate the mailbox in the Exchange System Manager.
(btw the path to the user store is admin groups, location, exchange server the account resides on, storage group, mailboxes)
When I would right click on the broken email box, I had Reconnect and Purge greyed out.  Turns out you have to run the cleanup agent first.
Right click on Mailboxes and the top option is Run Cleanup Agent.  When its done, you'll see a red x by the disconnected mailbox, you can now reconnect or purge the account.

Excel formula to get percentage for the last value in column Excel 2007

Recently I was working on an excel sheet that needed to compare the current value to the start value.  The list is updated monthly so the column is constantly expanding.  After some searching I came up with the following formula:
=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,A:A))/A#

Replace the red letter A's with the column you are working with.
Example, if the data is in column E, the formula would look like this:
=INDEX(E:E,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,E:E))

Replace the green A# with the static reference cell.

The way I had this setup was to have the original data along with the % up at the top of my page, the cells below would have the running data.

this creates a dynamic formula that can replace:
= (cell1) / (cell2).

How do I get Contacts at the bottom of the Task window in outlook you ask?

Its quite simple actually.
These directions are using Outlook 2007
Tools>Options>Preferences Tab>Contact Options>Contact Linking>put a check in Show Contact Linking on all Forms

Boom
You now have Contacts on the bottom of the Task window.  I had a user request this, otherwise I would never have known this was something you can do, or would want to do, in Outlook.

Forwarding user mail Exchange 2003

First, be connected to the exchange server.
Go into Active Directory Users and Computers
Locate user (right click domain>find)
Right click user>properties
Exchange General tab
Select the Delivery Options button
under Forwarding address, select Forward to: and click modify
type in the name the emails should go to and click Check Names
Ok out and you're all done.
You also have the option to Deliver messages to both forwarding address and mailbox, if you want both people to receive the emails, select this option.
You have now forwarded emails from the located user to the selected user.

boom goes the dynamite

Dell Server, F1 to continue F2 to enter setup utility

System: PowerEdge700
Problem: Beeps really loud and says F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup with no reason why.

F1 will go straight to windows no problem.  Every reboot I get this beep and F1...F2...
After some searching I found out it was because I moved the drives from the onboard SATA to a PCI card so I could add more drives in the server.
I simply had to disable the onboard port I was not longer using.  The server was originally using 2 drives, in both the onboard SATA ports.  This could have saved me a ton of reboot headaches if I found it out sooner, that BEEP is really loud...

Oh, so to disable the port, hit F2 to get into the setup menu, then arrow down to the Sata Port you're no longer using, hit the Space bar to change it, then Space again to turn it off, then Esc out.