i just installed microsoft office with a msdn product key … installation went successful  but the activation reported that the activation limit for that key was reached …

going the “normal” way to change the product key (via: “file > help > change product key”) did not work.

you can either start the setup from the installation media again and can choose “change product key” .. select next .. and enter the new key …

or you can go to “system settings > programs and features” .. there  select the office product and click on “change” …

then you are presented with the very same dialog …

if you are running the desktop version of codetwo exchange rules pro 1.4.2 or later you will notice that you can not insert an image to a signature … the dialog simple doesn’t appear …

to fix this:

• first update to 1.4.4 (as i did not test this with version 1.4.2) …
• then go to the server-installation of exchange rules pro (by default: “C:\Program Files\CodeTwo\CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro\” on your exchange server)
• and locate the file “C2HtmlEditor.UI.dll” …
• copy that to your desktop-version directory (by default: “C:\Program Files\CodeTwo\CodeTwo ExchangeRules Pro Desktop\” on your client)
• and restart the “Administration”-application …

this worked for me .. again .. using version 1.4.4 …

after bugging around with the tool “passchg” (from  http://ctrl-alt-del.com.au/CAD_TSUtils.htm) to change the password on a remote computer i finally found a shortcut to send ctrl + alt + delete …

just hit “ctrl + alt + end” …

as this will not work in a nested rdp-session i still have to use the tool there .. but for 90 % of my sessions this will work for me …

as an administrator i am often connected to different servers via rdp .. as i use multiple keyboard layouts i noticed that with windows 8 the systray icons seems to “jump” when a rdp-session is focused and then not focused …

rdp-session focused:

rdp-session not focused:

the annoying thing was .. when you click any icon while the rdp-session is focused you will actually click the icon right from it …

i found out that the new keyboard layout switching button can be replaced with the old desktop language bar …

this bar will also hide when a rdp-session is focused .. but it will not make the systray icons jump as it is located left from the systray …

to activate it you have to go to the language settings and there click on “advanced settings”:

in the advanced settings you will find the option “use the desktop language bar when it’s available” .. this will bring back the old desktop language bar …

when trying to install microsoft sql server 2008 r2 on windows 8 or windows server 2012 i was always prompted with the “program compatibility assistant” … which i knew for quite some time and which back then always told me “you can not install the software you are trying to install but you can click the button to get help online” …

therefore without further reading i closed the window … searching for a solution i stumbled upon an article where someone from microsoft describes when this popup is shown and what help one would get if he clicked the “Get help online button” … at a first sight this seemed not much of a help … but looking at it again i then realized the second button “run the program without getting help” … which .. obviously .. is the answer …

i run my windows system at work with a bunch of software tools:

• puretext [paste clipboard in plain text]
• dm2 [always on top any window/send to tray any window]
• bins [group software on the taskbar]
• hotkeyz [well … for hotkeys]
• winsplit revolution [a great window positioning/aligning tool]
• and one or two more …

those all worked fine with windows 7 but unfortunately not all work with windows 8 …

puretext does simply do nothing when trying to paste a text with the hotkey set … and dm2 is making even firefox behave strange … that’s where the title comes from .. dm2 causes firefox to take several minutes to load one page …

for now i will just life without them .. but i am certain there are some alternatives over at alternativeto.net

i bought an ebook reader (sony prs-t1 [which i rooted following this instructions]) and wanted to add all manuals of my household to it … so i could look up any setting quickly … so i downloaded the manual for my stereo system “TEAC TC-X350i” (from TEAC) and uploaded it to my ebook reader …

i had the idea that all manuals appear in the order %MANUFACTURER% %MODEL% …

i was confused that the manual on the ebook reader had the title “TC-X350I_OM_EF_…” and first thought of it beeing the filename .. but was wrong there … it turned out that this was some pdf-title …

i could not edit the manual as it was password protected … so i found the following solution to edit the pdf-title (and add other pdf properties):

run the following command to “print” a pdf named “temp.pdf” from the orginal pdf (named “original.pdf”) using ghostscript …

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=temp.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f original.pdf

install pdftk if you don’t have it installed:

sudo apt-get install pdftk

now run the follwing command to get a file (named “result.txt” containing all the pdf-properties aka metadata) …

pdftk temp.pdf dump_data output report.txt

open it in gedit or any other text editor and edit the line after “InfoKey: Title” (right after “InfoValue: “) … the following image shows my edited “result.txt” (i also added the author “TEAC” and a subject “Manual”) …

you then have to merge the new properties/metadata (the “result.txt”) to the “temp.pdf” using the following command which results in a new pdf “ebook_with_new_properties.pdf”:

pdftk temp.pdf update_info report.txt output ebook_with_new_properties.pdf

… that’s it .. you may delete the file “original.pdf” and “temp.pdf” now and use “ebook_with_new_properties.pdf” …

when trying to configure the dynamics crm outlook plugin it fails with an error saying that the server would not be reachable …

testing the very same installation (i used update rollup 10) on windows 7 it installed just fine …

after some searching i found out that the plugin requires the windows feature “windows identity foundation 3.5” to be turned on … as this windows feature is turned off by default in windows 8 you have to activate it …

after activating that feature the plugin will still fail to connect to the server … you have to apply the rollup update you use again .. afterwards it will work just fine …

the problem:

when I was trying to “wget” a file using $webClient.DownloadFile from a server with a self signed certificate it failed when using the following code:

$webClient = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$webClient.DownloadFile( $url, $path )

the resource:

searching for a solution i stumpled upon http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2010/07/25/windows-powershell-invalid-certificates-and-automated-downloading.aspx

there you will read that all it takes is to set the following just before you download the file …

[Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true}

the solution:

the complete script then would be something like:

$url = "https://server/file.ext"
$path = "c:\downloads\file.ext"
[Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true}
$webClient = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$webClient.DownloadFile( $url, $path )

as i could not find any other source i did the installation as follows …

download the 22 MB big exe file in the appropriate architecture from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=223229 run it and choose a directory to extract the files to …

when done navigate to the subfolder “FepExt\msp” and find the file “FEP2010-FEPEXT-KB2551095-x64-DEU.msp” extract that (using 7-zip) or similar to a new folder …

you will now find the updated setup “FEPInstall.exe” (version 2.1.1116.0) in the new created folder which is the version including the Rollup Update 1 …

copy that and install it to your new windows 8 or windows server 2012 systems …