Fix Windows 10 to work with Intel G3258 Pentium CPU

As you may have discovered, the Intel 20th Anniversary 4th Gen Pentium G3258 CPU has been excluded from Windows 10's list of supported CPUs.  This is a very popular CPU for its ability to overclock and integrated HD 4600 Graphics, and it's what Praetas uses in about 80% of its custom builds.

Because this CPU isn't properly setup to work with Windows 10, the only way we found to get it installed, was to go into the BIOS and change your number of cores from AUTO or 2, to "1".  You have to disable the second core.

The board we typically use is the Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A, and once in BIOS (after pressing the DEL key at POST), you go into Advanced Frequency Settings | Advanced CPU Core Settings | No. of CPU Cores Enabled.

(Optional: If you feel like increasing the frequency from the stock 3.2GHz, you could feel free to OC it to 4.0GHz on air cooling for a little better performance in the interim.)

Once Cores are set to "1", the installer should complete fine and Windows 10 should boot fine.

Now to get your second core enabled...

Once Windows 10 is installed, you need to navigate to C:\Windows\System32\mcupdate_GenuineIntel.dll and change ownership permission and security from TrustedInstaller to an administrator account.

Then rename the file to mcupdate_GenuineIntel.dll.bak.  Although probably not necessary, we renamed changed file permissions back to TrustedInstaller for completeness.

Restart the computer and go into BIOS and set Cores back to Auto or the full number of cores.

Windows 10 should boot fine and show the correct number of cores.

(Credit goes to hornirl for their original post "Win 10 G3258 issue, microcode?")

How to Update iOS Device That's Low on Space

Have you recently been unable to update your iPhone or iPad due to low disk space?

First, check what Apps are taking up all the space by going to Settings  →  General  →  Usage. 

It may take up to a minute to calculate all your Apps and their usage, so be patient. In many cases you can simply delete a few apps from this screen to free up enough space.

However, in some case you either cannot free up enough space, or your device will indicate it has enough space required, yet you'll still be greeted by an unable to update error message.

If this sounds like you, we've provided the easy-to-follow guide to backup your iDevice to a computer, update it, and restore all of your data (often leaving you with more available space than your started with):

1. Make sure iTunes is installed on your PC or Mac and that it’s up to date.
2. Plug in your iDevice and allow an iTunes sync to complete.
3. Click the iPhone/iPad/iPod button in the top right to go to your device summary page.
   
   
   
4. On the summary page, make sure Automatically Back Up is set to “This Computer”, and click the “Back Up Now” button on the right.
   
   
5. Approve any prompts asking for permission, or asking to transfer apps/purchases to your computer.
   
6. When backup is complete, click the Restore iPhone… button in the top right of the summary page.
   
   
   
   
7. If you see a message about turning off Find My iPhone, without unplugging your phone from the computer, go to your iPhone Settings à iCloud à and turn off Find My iPhone (you will need to enter your Apple ID password)
   
   
   
   
8. Click the Restore iPhone… button again – if it asks you if you want to backup, you can decline backing up (you already did it, RIIIIIGHT?)
   
9. Approve restoring iPhone and UPDATING – iTunes will download iOS 7.1 and upon completion of the download, wipe your phone and install the new iOS.
   
10. Upon completion of the restore, with your iPhone still plugged in, iTunes will ask if you want to setup as a new iPhone, or restore from a backup – choose restore from the most recent backup (check the backup dates for the one you just did).
    
    

Once the backup is restored, you are good to go with the new iOS, and all your stuff (and probably a little more free space)

Diagnosing and Fixing DVD Drive in Windows that cant read discs & Error Code 39 in Device Manager

We have had this come up a handful of times, so we thought it was a good idea to do a blog about it.

When you have a computer whose DVD drive fails to read a disc, or fails to show up in My Computer, and shows an Error Code 39 in Device Manager, chances are the drive is fine, but there is a Registry corruption related to the optical drive.

Below are the steps for curing that issue once you discover this to be the problem:

1. Open Regedit
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
3. Scroll down the list, find and click on {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
4. Locate the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values.
5. Right click and delete each, sometimes there is only one or the other.
6. Reboot, your DVD/CD drive should appear in My Computer now, if not you have a different problem.

Re-enable Microsoft Office 2007/2010/2013 Updates when Update option was declined after Installation

We recently had a customer who wanted to install some updates for her Office 2010 installation, but we found that Windows Update did not have the option for Microsoft Updates.

This would occur if after installation of Office, the customer chose Don't Make Changes instead of Use Recommended Settings or Install Updates Only, which would add the Microsoft Updates for Office feature to Windows Update:

A lot of instructions out there tell you to go to the File menu in Word or Excel, click Help, then Check for Updates:

But when you click on that, you get a dead-end message in your browser telling you to use Windows Update:

But, as you already know, Windows Update doesn't give you any Microsoft Update options.  So what do you do??

Its actually incredibly easy - I finally found this website: http://www.msoutlook.info/question/363 that tells you to click the "Find out more" link next to "Get updates for other Microsoft products" on the main windows of the Windows Update page:

Clicking the link downloads and installs the Microsoft Update feature for Windows Update.  Re-check for updates and now you will see Office updates among your Windows Updates!

The website above gives you specific instructions for Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Fix "Your IMAP server closed the connection" Error in Outlook by Disabling Automatic Send Receive

We recently added IMAP access to a customer's Bellsouth account in their unused Outlook 2007.  All was well until the customer reported getting intermittent Outlook errors stating:

"Your IMAP server closed the connection. This can occur if you leave the connection idle for too long"

and a balloon popup stating:

"A connection to the server cannot be established.  imap.mail.yahoo.com is now in offline mode"

We verified the IMAP settings, extended the automatic Send/Receive settings interval, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally we stumbled on a suggestion to disable the Automatic Send/Receive entirely because IMAP is actually a "live" connection and doesn't require a scheduled Send/Receive.  We turned it off and lo and behold the errors stopped.

We tested sending an email and it sent immediately.  We replied to the email, and it arrived in the user's Inbox within a reasonable amount of time (within a minute).

This is the first time we have ever had this kind of problem with a user's IMAP account in Outlook, and typically the error would point to too many concurrent connections to your IMAP server.

In this case, apparently the scheduled Send/Receive was overlapping the "live" connection and causing these errors to popup.

Migrate Outlook 2010 Autocomplete Store to new Outlook 2010 Profile or to Outlook 2013

We have plenty of situations where either a customer with Outlook 2007 needs us to create a new Outlook 2007 profile and copy their NK2 file over (just rename the NK2 to match the new profile name), or where someone is transferring their Outlook 2007 NK2 file from one computer to a new one with Outlook 2010 (easily accomplish this via the Microsoft FixIt).  This was all fine and good, but we have recently begun encountering people who need to migrate their autocomplete data to a new Outlook 2010 Profile or to Outlook 2013.

The difference is that Outlook 2010 got rid of the NK2 file that was so easy to transfer and replaced it with a specially named DAT file, tied to its associated profile.  There's not an issue when you upgrade from 2007 to 2010, or from 2010 to 2013, but what if you switch from a POP email to an IMAP or Exchange email account and need a new profile, or get a new computer that has Outlook 2010 or 2013, and you want to migrate your autocomplete data?

There is not a lot on the subject, and the suggestions that are out there are very differing.  The one method we will detail below works flawlessly, and is recommended by Microsoft Support, but assumes you have access to the old profile and the prior Outlook is actively working and available.  Until Microsoft gets around to producing a FixIt for Outlook Autocomplete DAT file migration, this appears to be the best option:

1. Exit Outlook, and then close Outlook Web Access or Outlook Web App (OWA) on all workstations that are connected to the user mailbox.
   
2. Download MFCMAPI from http://mfcmapi.codeplex.com
   
3. Run mfcmapi.exe.
   
4. On the Session menu, click Logon.
   
5. If you are prompted for a profile, select the desired profile name, and then click OK.
   
6. In the top pane, locate the line that corresponds to your mailbox, and then double-click it.
   
7. In the left-side navigation pane, expand Root Container, and then expand Top of Information Store or IPM Sub Tree.
   
8. Right-click the Inbox folder, and then click Open Associated Content Table. This action opens a new MFCMAPI window that contains various properties.
   
9. Under the Subject column, right-click the item that has the subject IPM.Configuration.Autocomplete, and then click Export Message. This action opens the Save Message To File window.
   
10. In the drop-down list, select MSG file (UNICODE), and then click OK.
    
11. Select a folder location to which you want to save the message, and then click Save. Note this location.

Fixing the Hard Drive Controller when Transplanting Old Hard Drive into New Windows PC or Laptop - Fix Stop: 0x0000007B Error

We often have customers who love the way their Windows computer was configured with icons in certain places, a particular background, various free or paid programs installed, customized for them, and it was always painful to tell the customer that when their motherboard died, or they wanted to get a new computer, Windows would have to be re-installed, and all of that would have to be re-configured.

If you were to transplant a hard drive previously installed with Windows from one PC into another PC, with a different motherboard and different hard drive controller, upon boot up you would likely get a BSOD with a 0x0000007B error like this:

We sought out to find a way to transplant a used hard drive from one Windows computer into a brand new or used one, with a different motherboard and hard drive controller, without requiring a re-install of Windows, Applications and backup/recovery of all the data on the drive.

The method detailed below has been performed by us now dozens of times and works very well.  Please let us know if you attempt this procedure and have any questions about the process:

1. First obtain the UBCD4WIN boot CD utility from here: http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm
2. Follow the steps listed here to create the CD: http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm
3. Install your old hard drive in the new computer.
4. Turn on computer and boot off the CD
5. Boot into the live environment
6. Go to Start > Programs> Registry Tools > FIX_hdc> Fix hard disk controller

















7. Assuming your target Windows install is in C:\WINDOWS, push M on your keyboard.
8. Observe any further prompts and take action if necessary.
9. Reboot and remove the CD from the drive, you should now see your Windows OS booting up!

P.S. Assuming you are transplanting your old HDD into a new computer designed to run Windows 8, there are additional settings you need to change in the BIOS to enable this to work.