Turning Off Outlook's New Mail Alerts

To turn off Outlook's popup alerts telling you that new mail has arrived, take the following steps in Outlook:

1. Click on File.
2. Click on Options.
3. Click on Mail.
4. Under Message arrival, clear the checkbox for Display a Desktop Alert.

Applies to Outlook 2010 to 2013

References:

1. Turn on or off new message alert pop-up window
   Office.com

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Missing IMAP Folders in Thunderbird

Thunderbird was not showing some folders listed for an email account on an an IMAP server. In order to get them to display on the PC on which I was running Thunderbird 17.0.4, within Thunderbird I clicked on File, then selected Subscribe. I then saw a folder list with "Select the folders to subscribe to" displayed above the folders on the IMAMP server for the account. I checked the boxes to the right of the ones that weren't displaying. For some folders that had subfolders, I had to click on the rightward pointing arrowhead to the left of the folder to display the subfolders and their checkboxes.

[/network/email/clients/thunderbird] permanent link

Adding Live365 to Online Services in Winamp 5.63

I installed WinAmp 5.63 on a family member's Windows 8 system She wanted to add Live365 as a service to it. I had written instructions for doing that for Winamp 5.552 previously at Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List. I found that I had to modify the procedure slightly for Winamp 5.63. I found ml_online.ini was now in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml where Username was the user's account name. The ml_online.ini file contained the following lines:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;22259

Beneath the C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml directory was an omServices subdirectory with files named omService_{0000xxxxxx}.ini where xxxxxx was a sequence of digits, e.g., omService_{0000221836}.ini, which had the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=221836
name=Song of the Day
url=http://www.spinner.com/winamp-mp3-of-the-day
icon=http://download.nullsoft.com/customize/component/2009/1/22/W/icon_image/Mp3_of_the_Day.png
flags=0x00000001
version=3
generation=2

I put a 365.png file to serve as an icon in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml\omServices and created a file omService_{0000000365}.ini and put the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=000365
name=Live365
url=http://www.live365.com
icon=live365.png
flags=0x00000001
version=1
generation=1

When I did so and reopened Winamp, I found that the ml_online.ini had 365 added to the order line as shown below:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;222598;222598;365

Live365 was then at the bottom of the list of online services in WinAmp.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp/live365] permanent link

Closing Windows 8 Metro Applications

When you open a Windows 8 Metro app, there is no immediately apparent way to close the application when you are done with it. You won't see an "x" at the upper, right-hand corner of Metro applications windows and Moving the mouse pointer to the corners of the window doesn't show a way to close it. You can close the application by hitting Alt-F4, i.e., by hitting the Alt and F4 keys simultaneously.

An alternative method of closing one of the applications is to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Windows Task Manager and then select the application to close by clicking on it and then choosing End Task.

References:

1. How to close Windows 8 apps, and how to disable SmartScreen
   By Sebatian Anthony
   Date: November 15, 2012
   ExtremeTech

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Personalizing Windows 8

To change the background that appears on a Windows 8 system when the system is locked, i.e., when it is waiting for you to enter the userid and password, you can follow the steps below. By default, the system shows a stylized image of the Seattle Tower in Seattle, Washington in the U.S.

1. Hit the Windows key and the I key simultaneously. The Windows key is the one with a Windows logo on it normally at the lower, left-hand corner of the keyboard as shown below:

   

2. Then select "Change PC Settings" which will be at the bottom of the panel that opens on the right of your screen.

   

3. With Personalize selected and Lock screen highlighted at the top of the window, you can then pick one of the other 5 images shown below the one for the Seattle Tower, or click on Browse to select another image of your choosing. Click on Choose Picture when you find the one you wish to use.

   

If you wish to change the picture that appears for your account, you can follow the same procedure as above, but choose Account picture, instead of Lock screen. An image can be displayed as a small 96 x 96 pixel image, a large 448 x 448 pixel image, or a video (dynamic image) - see Guidelines for user names and account pictures (Windows).

You can also change the Start Screen colors by choosing Start screen.

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Copying Windows 7 Themes to a Windows 8 System

To copy the themes that someone downloaded to her Windows 7 system to her new Windows 8 system, I located the .themepack files on the Windows 7 system, which I found in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp, where Username was the name for her account on the Windows 7 system. Then on her Windows 8 system, I just double-clicked on each Windows Theme Pack file to install it on the new system.

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Adding a Link to a Website to the Windows 8 Start Screen

If you wish to add a shortcut to the Windows 8 Start Screen so that you can click on an icon on the Start Screen to go to the URL for a website, you can do so by taking the following steps using Internet Explorer 10.

1. Go to the website in Internet Explorer.
2. Click on Tools. If you don't see the Tools menu, hit the Ctrl and T keys simultaneously to bring up the Tools menu.
3. Select Add site to Start Screen.
4. A Windows Internet Explorer window will open showing the name that will be used for the item to be added to the Start Screen with the URL in the From field. Click on Add to add the site to the Start Screen.

   

References:

1. How to Pin a Website (Windows)
   Microsoft Developer Network

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

MUSHclient 4.84 Help Function for Windows 8

I installed MUSHclient 4.84, which is a free program for accessing a MUSH server from a Microsoft Windows system on a Windows 8 system. Afterwards, when I tried the "help" function, I saw the following:

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in Windows 8 or Windows RT. For more info, go to the Microsoft Support website.

At I cannot open Help that was created in the Windows Help format (WinHlp32.exe), there are download links for Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for various versions of Windows. The one for Windows 8 is at Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 8.

After installing Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows 8, I was able to use the Help function in MUSHclient without even needing to restart the program.

The same issue exists when MUSHclient is installed on Windows 7 - see Windows Help Under Windows 7.

[/gaming/mushclient] permanent link

Sending a Test Message When Setting Up Outlook 2013

While setting up a POP3 account for a user using Microsoft Outlook 2013, I received the message below when I clicked on Test Account Settings:

Send test e-mail message: An unknown error occurred, error code: 0x800c8101

I found a June 18, 2012 posting by CharlieBrady at Email configuration who stated the problem can occur because there is a bug in Outlook 2013's "test email" function.

Unfortunately, this is what you should expect to see. Outlook has a bug in its "test email" function. It sends a test message with an illegal format - it has no "Date" header. This is documented in the wiki:

http://wiki.contribs.org/Email#Outlook_test_message_doesn.27t_come_through

SME server does not accept those illegal messages, as such messages are usually spam. Legitimate mail clients do not generate such messages.

So I unchecked "Automatically test account settngs when Next is clicked" and proceeded to complete the setup of the email account for the user. After it was set up, I sent an email using Outlook 2013 from the account to two other addresses, one outside the user's email server, which uses Sendmail to send email, and verified that both were received.

[/os/windows/office/outlook] permanent link

Outlook 2013 Incompatible with Exchange 2003

When trying to set up Microsoft Outlook 2013 for a user to use a Microsoft Exchange 2003 server, I received the following message:

The resource that you are trying to use is located on an unsupported version of Microsoft Exchange. Contact your e-mail administrator for assistance.

That was followed by the message below:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. The file C:\Users\JDoe\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\JDoe@example.com.ost is not an Outlook data file (.ost).

At Office 2013 known issues, I found the following:

Workaround Outlook 2013 isn't supported on Exchange 2003 and connectivity is blocked. Please connect Outlook 2013 to Exchange 2007, 2010, or 2013.

[/os/windows/office/outlook] permanent link

Adding a Tile to the Windows 8 Start Screen

If you wish to add a tile to the Microsoft Windows 8 Start Screen, you can do so by clicking on the Start button which will appear at the lower, left-hand corner of the screen when you move the mouse there, and then typing the name of the application you wish to add or by right-clicking on an empty area of the desktop and then clicking on All Apps when it appears at the lower, right-hand corner of the screen, which will show all applications. Once you see the application you wish to add to the Start Screen, right-click on it and select Pin to Start. The item will then appear on the Start Screen at the end of the entries when you scroll to the right. If you wish to add it to a particular group of tiles you can drag it to an existing group or create a new group by following the instructions at Creating Application Groups in Windows 8.

References:

1. Quick Tip: Create a tile on the Windows 8 Start Screen
   Date: November 21, 2012
   By Mark Kaelin
   TechRepublic - A Resource for IT Professionals

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