Here is a list of useful tips and trick to help you solve common windows and office annoyances. Check back often as we add new tips when we discover or need them.

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Windows tips

When Windows was installed on the computer
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systeminfo | find /i “install date”

The language bar keeps appearing and you can’t get rid of it?
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To remove the language bar

  1. Go to “Start”, then “Run”
  2. Type “Regsvr32.exe /u msutb.dll” and press enter
  3. The Language bar will never bother you again!

Windows annoys and wants to restart after it was updated?
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Updating your computer is almost complete – Restart Now?

If you’re running Windows XP SP2, you’ve seen this message that asks “Updating your computer is almost complete. You must restart your computer for the updates to take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now?”

And there are only two options: Restart Now/Restart Later.
“Restart Later” means that every ten minutes the box will pop up again, and take focus.

To get rid of it: Start / Run / gpedit.msc / Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update / Re-prompt for restart With scheduled installations you can configure how often it will ask you.

The maximum is 1,440 minutes, which is 24 hours.

Unfortunately, this setting only takes place on a reboot so you have to go one step further to get it to take immediate effect.

Open the command line again and type gpupdate.exe /force and press ENTER.

Completely disable accelerators feature in IE 8
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If you really want to disable the accelerators feature in IE 8, please perform the following steps.

1. Start Internet Explorer 8.
2. Click Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced 3. Then uncheck the box for Display Accelerator button on selection, under Browsing.
4. Click Apply and OK.

Windows 7 (64-bit) & OpenVPN GUI
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To make OpenVPN work on Windows 7 64-bit workstations follow the following steps:

  1. Downloaded the most recent OpenVPN installation (openvpn-2.1.1-install.exe)
  2. Selected “Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)” & ”Run this program as an administrator”
  3. Downloaded & Installed OpenVPN-GUI (version 1.0.3)
  4. Ran OpenVPN-GUI as an administrator

Office tips

Cannot drag and drop attachments outlook 2007
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  1. Close Outlook
  2. Re-register a .dll by clicking Start/Run then type
    “regsvr32.exe ole32.dll” without quotes then press Enter

Delete double cell in excel
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Select the data just in column A, and click on Data > Filter > Advance Filter, choose “Filter the list, in place”, select “Unique records only”, and click OK. Select your entire range now, which is filtered to only show rows with unique data in column A. Copy and paste it anywhere else you want. Your old data is still intact, which you can delete if you are certain you’ll never need it.

Convert hours & minutes in excel
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Go to Format > Cells > Custom and type: [m]

Move data between rows and columns in Excel
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  1. Copy the data in one or more columns or rows.
  2. Before you paste the copied data, right-click your first destination cell (the first cell of the row or column into which you want to paste your data), and then click Paste Special.
  3. In the Paste Special dialog box, select Transpose, and then click OK.

You’ll find the Transpose check box in the lower-right corner of the dialog box:

Starting with your first cell, Excel pastes the data into a row or column.

Opening Outlook 2007 in different windows
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Right click on the Outlook 2007 shortcut and remove the “/recycle” from the command line, After that Outlook will open in different windows

Error starting Outlook “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.”
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To resolve this problem, use the following steps. On the Start menu click Run. In the Run dialog box, type the following command: Outlook.exe /resetnavpane Note: There is a space between “Outlook.exe” and “/resetnavpane” Click OK. Note If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may not see Run on the Start menu. In this situation, use the following steps to locate the Run option. On the Start menu click All Programs. Click Accessories. Click Run.

How to open Word 2007 and Excel 2007 in different windows
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Excel 2007 or Word 2007, if you click on multiple Excel 2007 spreadsheets, they will open in the same window.

To make them open in different windows follow the instruction below
( this is valid for excel, word,…) just repeat it for the other extensions (doc, docx…), below is for excel.

  1. Open my computer
  2. Click on Tools, then Folder Options
  3. Select the File Types tab
  4. Scroll down to the XLS extension
  5. Select advanced
  6. Select open
  7. Select Edit…
  8. In the line that says “Application used to perform action:” ,
    go to the end of the line and add “%1″
    (that would be %1 within double quotes) so for example it may read something like
    “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE” /e “%1″
  9. “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\POWERPNT.EXE” /e “%1″
  10. Uncheck Use DDE (save the text that is in the DDE message if u ever want to restore it on day)
  11. Click ok and click OK again
  12. Now scroll down to XLSX
  13. Repeat steps 5 through 11 (also for DOC and DOCX)
  14. Click on Close
  15. Each Excel 2007 spreadsheet will open in a separate window.

You can do it with other programs: visio, project, publisher

These instructions will guide you in setting custom “shortcuts” in the Windows XP “Save As” dialog box. note: this also works in Windows Vista Ultimate Edition – but I’m not sure about the other versions of Vista.
1. Below you’ll find a screenshot of the default “Save As” dialog box in Windows XP. Make note of the shortcuts that you actually use, so you can make sure to keep them. 2. Click Start and select Run. In the Run window enter gpedit.msc and click OK. 3. The Group Policy editor will appear. 4. In the left window select the + (plus sign) next to User Configuration to expand the list. Next select the plus sign next to Administrative Templates and then Windows Explorer. Finally, select the Common Open File Dialog entry. 5. Double-click the Items displayed in Places Bar entry in the main Group Policy window. 6. The Items displayed in Places Bar Properties window will open. 7. Select Enabled and then enter in the locations you’d like to have displayed in the Save As dialog box. You need to enter the full path to the location for the shortcuts to work. For example, if you want to have a shortcut to your My Documents folder, enter in:

C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\My Documents\

Once you’ve entered in all the locations you’d like to appear in the Save As window, click Apply and then OK. 8. Back in the Group Policy editor, you should see that the Items displayed in Places Bar is now Enabled. Close the Group Policy editor. 9. Test it out by saving a file – you should now have the new shortcuts displayed. 10. The same shortcuts will be used in the Open dialog box – not just the Save As box. 11. This will also work in Windows Vista – though I’ve only confirmed that it works in Vista Ultimate edition.

Extract Embedded Media From Office Documents by Changing the Extension
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Need to get one or more images out of a Microsoft Word .DOC or .DOCX file? You’ll need Word 2007 or later—or another .DOCX compatible program. If it’s a .DOC file, open it in Word and save as a .DOCX file.

Make a duplicate of the file and rename the extension from .DOCX to .ZIP. Open the zip archive and you should see several folders. You’re looking for the ‘media’ folder which in this should be under the ‘word’ folder.

Open the media folder and the images will be in there. This trick will also work for PowerPoint presentations and other Office file types.

How to add shortcuts to My places bar?
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Click here to watch the video guide.