Turns out it’s because I’m using a USB keyboard and mouse. Swapped these for good old PS2 ones and it boots from the CD no problem.

Computers never cease to surprise me with their little fussy ways! :)

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This basically means that your registry is corrupt! To restore it, follow the steps below…

Possibly the easiest way to do this is take the HDD out and put it in a slave computer. Otherwise boot up with some form of recovery disk, The Ultimate Boot CD is what I would normally use.

Navigate to C:\Windows\system32\config on the corrupt system.

Locate the following files, and rename them to include “.old” on the end:

• DEFAULT
• SAM
• SECURITY
• SOFTWARE
• SYSTEM (i.e. this will now be “SYSTEM.old”)

We now need to put a recent (hopefully undamaged) copy of the registry from the System Restore folder into this folder.

Check that Protected Operating System Files are displayed (Tools, Folder options…). Navigate to C:\System Volume Information. You will need to add your individual user account to the Security options with Full Control (see Microsoft KB article 307545 if you’re having trouble).

Once you’re in to the System Volume Information directory, you’ll see the _restore folder with a long GUID code, go into this.

Now you’ll see a collection of folders beginning with RP then a number. Select one that isn’t the most recent, i.e. from a couple of weeks or so ago. Now select the Snapshot folder.

From the Snapshot folder, copy the following files:

• _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
• _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
• _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
• _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
• _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM

and paste them into C:\Windows\system32\config

Now rename the five files to their original names, e.g. “_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT” becomes “DEFAULT”

That’s it! Replace the HDD in the computer and power on, the PC should boot up and log in fine.

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Luckily, Acer do provide a factory default image on a hidden part of the hard disk on the computer. When you install this, your computer is returned to an out of the box condition. You can access the recovery partition in two different ways.

If you’re still able to use Vista on the computer, go to the Acer Empowering Technology application (the long green strip). Find the eRecovery option and follow the prompts to do a factory default recovery. This will completely wipe your computer’s C drive so make sure your data is backed up in a safe place.

If your computer won’t start Vista, you can access the recovery partition by pressing ALT + F10 when the computer is first switched on and you see the Acer bootup screen. Follow the prompts but again, this will completely wipe your computer’s C drive so if you have important data that needs backing up, contact me or your local computer repair company to see if anything can be salvaged.

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Web pages were not being displayed within any browser, but I was getting internet access (i.e. Windows Update and Messenger were ok). This led me to suspect some sort of firewall issue, and disabling Kasperksy allowed the internet to work fine. A re-install of Kaspersky made no difference.

So with Kaspersky disabled, I’d got the web browsers working and I downloaded the manual update files. Configured to do the manual update which processed three files and then failed with the same error.

But I’ve never had these problems with Kaspersky before, so was starting to get doubts about this normally great piece of software. I couldn’t find anything relevant on their forums with the search terms I was using. Luckily the client had mentioned to me that the laptop did have Norton pre-installed on it before he installed the Kaspersky… apparently Kaspersky had reported that it removed Norton. A bit of internet surfing later and I came across a thread that pointed the finger at Norton, which I have to say came as no surprise and I really should have started out on that track.

I ran the Norton Removal Tool and hey presto, I can surf the net with Kaspersky fully enabled and the updates downloaded and installed fine.

Job done (curses to you, Norton).

P.S. If you need to download the NRT, go here. If the link is broken, please let me know, then Google “norton removal tool” and look for the symantec site.

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The primary user was fine, and although both users were Administrators, it looked to me like the secondary user was experiencing permissions problems and not able to control the printer properly.

I switched to the main user account (i.e. the one that was used to set up and install the computer) and checked the printer’s Security tab – my suspicions were confirmed…

It looks like Vista has locked down printer control – the main account has the ability to Print, Manage this printer and Manage documents but the Everyone group only has the permission to Print.

There are two ways to solve this. Either create the specific permissions for your user accounts, but, in a home environment, you might as well give the Everyone group control of the printer.

I added the Manage this printer and the Manage documents permission to the Everyone group and logged back in to the secondary account.

Envelope printing is now behaving as it should, the obvious change when you go back to check is the user now has the ability to select the various tray options.

Job done.

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Apparently this setting should take care of itself if you’re doing a fresh install with the latest releases. However, mine was a standalone install initially, which I then updated to be ADNM managed.

You need to check if the avast! Mail Scanner service is running, and as this is a manual service, it was still running on my setup. I stopped it and confirmed it was set to Manual (so it shouldn’t restart itself). After a reboot, it had restarted, so I set it to Disabled. That should do the trick.

Checked the message queues in Exchange and mail is flowing out again.

Job done.

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It was one of those situations where it took me a while to work out what was causing the problem, especially after all the updates and other messing around I’d been doing. Thanks to Google and the Avast forum moderator, Vlk, I realised it was Avast that was causing the problem.

Here’s what you have to do to get it to work properly.

Once you’ve deployed the managed version onto the (Exchange) server and it’s rebooted, fire up your ADNM console.

Select Tasks, Client Side Tasks, On Access Scanning Tasks. You’ll see the default task in the right hand pane.

Right click the default task and choose Properties.

Select Providers and double check that the box next to Exchange 2007 is ticked. Confirm by pressing OK.

Now send the rule to the server. To do this, locate the server name in the Computer Catalog, right click it, and select Apply To Computer.

You can then go back to the unwell server, go to the Start button and select Administrative Tools, Services. Find the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service and right click it, select Start. The service should restart and all will be fine, but probably best to reboot the server and double check the service restarts automatically.

Job done.

To see the post on the Avast forum that was eventually my solution, go here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=40960.0

Mind you, that wasn’t entirely panic over. We started getting NDRs claiming a message delay. So if you’ve done a manual server install then updated to ADNM managed, you may need this following step. Disabling the avast! Mail Scanner service

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