I’ve been setting up Dreamweaver 8 on my Windows Vista 64-Bit laptop. So far I’m happy with 64-Bit Vista. It runs well and seems stable.

The Dreamweaver 8.02 upgrade on the other hand just won’t run. I was searching for a solution and found this blog post:

http://www.sabbie.co.uk/2007/12/dreamweaver-802-update-on-vista-64-bit.html

Many thanks to the author of the sabbietage blog for posting those instructions.

I’ve been trying to install and run Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 on my Windows Vista 64-bit laptop. The install would go fine. I could launch the program. It would show in my running processes but never display. Perplexing to say the least.

After fiddling with this for the better part of the morning I found a solution here:

http://www.vistax64.com/software/146706-photoshop-cs3-dreamweaver-cs3-work-vista-x64-sp1.html

The solution in a nutshell is:

Before installing in Vista Ultimate X64
Click Start in bottom left
Search for cmd
Right click and run as administrator
type or copy and paste
cd C:\Windows\SysWow64
then copy and paste
regsvr32 jscript.dll
then copy and paste
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
now you can install Photoshop CS3 by double clicking on setup

Those instructions say Photoshop but it worked fine with my Dreamweaver 8.

More details at the link above.

When you run Outlook 2000 on Windows Vista you receive the error:

” ERROR OPENING WINDOWS ADDRESS BOOK. UNABLE TO FIND WAB.DLL”

Scott’s Blog has the answer:

Click Here to read Scott’s answer

Use Explorer to navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System
Copy wab32.dll and wab32res.dll to C:\Windows\System32

I had to open Explorer in Administrator mode to copy the DLL’s. How do you do that? Hold Ctrl-Shift while clicking in Explorer or the Drive letter you are opening.

If that doesn’t get Outlook 2000 running on your system visite Scott’s blog at the link above for more details.

A nifty app…

TNPC Newsletter
by Dan Butler

Helping you stay more productive.

Hi ~

Hope you are having a productive week.

This week Al Gordon takes a first look at the new Microsoft Office
file formats and what they mean to you. Like it or not Microsoft’s
file formats affect all of us eventually. Personally, I am sticking
with my old version of Microsoft Office 2000. It does everything I
need and I can not justify the price of upgrading.

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We also discuss a few more loose ends with Microsoft Vista and a
cool piece of freeware I had forgotten about. You will like the
freeware.

First go read last weeks issue at the blog:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/category/newsletters/tnpc/

Share your thoughts and get technical assistance at the TNPC Forum:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/discuss/

More Vista Notes by Dan Butler

I’m still getting Microsoft Vista into a useable state. One thing
is for sure – Vista likes RAM and lots of it. (Anyone wanting to
contribute some RAM to the cause let me know – we can work out a
trade – Dan) The barebones system I purchased barely has enough to keep
the system running. I am truly amazed that Microsoft would release
a system that runs this sluggishly. Okay I am really not that
surprised.

One observation – and I am not implying anything – but running
Mozilla Firefox takes a ton of memory and noticeably drags the
system down. Internet Explorer on the other hand does not have this
effect. Intentional on Microsoft’s part? More than likely it is a
function of how Internet Explorer interacts with the Windows
system. It is more fun to think of a sinister conspiracy.

I did find that Vista was indexing every file on my system and
grinding to a halt in the process. So I turned off the indexer
inside the Control Panel. The result was a dramatic instant speed
up in my system.

This was exacerbated by my copying the contents of the hard drives
from my now dead computer to the new drive. Introducing literally
tens of thousands of new files into the system set the index on a
permanent quest. Many of those files would be deleted so there is
not reason for them to be in the index in the first place.

Enough about Vista for now. You can follow my notes on Vista over
at the blog:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/category/vista/

I’ll tell you about that nifty freeware after this brief commercial
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FontList A Really Nifty Piece of Freeware

While cleaning up my hard drive I stumbled on an old program called
FontList. FontList does one thing. It creates an HTML page showing
all of the fonts installed on your system. The page lets you make
the font bigger, bold, and italic. I really like this and wonder
how it fell off my radar. So how much is this handy tool? Free and
you can get yours here:

http://www.bitstorm.org/fontlist/

Yes it works just fine in my copy of Vista.

X marks the new format. by Al Gordon

DOCX. XLSX. PPTX. XPS. Microsoft Office 2007 has ended the freeze
on file formats it has maintained since Office 97 and introduced
these new XML-based ones. The first three are the new file
extensions for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint respectively. XPS is a
new Microsoft attempt to compete with Adobe Acrobat PDF (the
result, according to industry gossip, of a dispute between the two
companies over licensing terms for PDF in Microsoft programs.

You and I haven’t been demanding XML-based file formats, but the IT
community has. XML is a formatting language that can be used
interchangeably for documents and web pages. Plus it also is the
format for the RSS news feeds that are spreading like wildfires.
Putting information in XML allows for wide distribution options.
Plus, the new Microsoft file formats are zip-compressed,
substantially reducing their size.

The open source world already is on board with XML via the OpenDoc
file format used in OpenOffice. But Microsoft, as it always does,
wanted its own standard, which it calls Open XML. I have little or
no interest in getting into the tedious debate raging between
supporters of the two standards.

From a practical, real world perspective the key issue is this:
virtually everyone uses some flavor of Microsoft Office or uses the
existing Office file formats – and no version of Office except 2007
can read the new format natively. Furthermore, the new formats are
turned on by default in Office 2007, which means that sooner or
later someone with a new PC will send you one of the X Files.

Microsoft has released a conversion package
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en) that will allow users of
older version of Office to hand the new files. You probably ought
to install it now. Mac users, though, will have to wait a couple of
months because converters for OfficeMac won’t be released until
March or April.

As for conversion between Microsoft Office and OpenDoc, Microsoft
has started an open source (!) project -
http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter – that so far has
yielded only a converter for Word 2007. However, this is a dramatic
reversal for Redmond, which previously vowed it would never support
OpenDoc.

XPS, though, I wouldn’t worry about much yet. Only a PC with both
Windows Vista and Office 2007 (and then only if the Office 2007
user installs an add-on) will be fully capable of creating or
viewing such documents. The software to work with other versions is
not yet released.

(c) 2007 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a political and
media consultant in the Boston area.
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BANABU is 11 simple principles you can start using immediately
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Find out what BANABU stands for and discover more here:
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My favorite way to look up personal information about myself and
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Copyright 2007 Dan Butler
All Rights Reserved.
ISSN: 1522-4422

* We never rent, sell, or trade our email list with others. Your
information is safe.

Microsoft Vista has no native support for my NEC Superscript 870. What is the solution? Install the printer using the HP LaserJet IIP driver. The downside to this is your printer will only print at 300 DPI instead of 600 DPI.

You will also lose all of the cool tools you had with the printer under Windows 98 and before. That right you lost a lot of functionality by moving to Windows 2K, Windows XP, or Windows Vista if you used this printer. So what to do? Install FinePrint. FinePrint gives you back all of the print options you had and more. In fact I have used FinePrint as my default printer on systems in the past. It just works great.

So how do you install your NEC printer as an HP printer?

First open your Control Panel and click Printers. Now click “Add a Printer”. Specify if you printer is Local (plugged in to your computer) or on the Network (plugged in to a different computer). We are assuming you have a Local printer.

Next specify the port. Usually you can just take the default here. Now you will be presented with a list of available printer drivers with manufacturers on the left and printer models on the right.

Under manufacturers choose “HP”. Then on the right scroll down and find the “HP LaserJet IIP”. It will probably show up just after the “Laserjet IIIP”. Click next and follow the instructions to complet installing your printer.

Next do yourself a huge favor. Download and install FinePrint:

http://www.fineprint.com/

With FinePrint installed I think you will be quite happy with your SuperScript 870 under Windows Vista.

Microsoft has outdone itself in trying to take control away from you. I had to buy a new PC when mine died and the new one came with a copy of Microsoft Vista Home Basic. What was Microsoft thinking when they released this?

Just now I went to play a DVD that I had been waiting for. The CD is on an obscure topic and made by an individual who is an expert on the topic. Only one problem – the DVD will not play on my computer. At first I thought it was because the home made DVD might be faulty. Turns out that Windows Vista Home Basic will not play a DVD inside Windows Media Player. Seriously.

The “help” at Microsoft’s website says when Vista ships you will be able to purchase the codec to make DVD’s play on this crippled and lame version of Windows. Okay I added the crippled and lame part. Stay with me and I will tell you how to make the DVD play on your copy of Vista Home Basic – for free. Something Microsoft couldn’t be bothered with in their attempt to nickle and dime you to death.

Ridiculous moves like this make you really wonder what Microsoft was thinking when they released the operating system. Want to play a DVD? Pay more money.

Okay enough of my ranting. To play a DVD on your copy Windows Vista Home Basic all you need to do is download a copy of the VideoLAN Media player, VLC for short. You can find that download here:

http://www.videolan.org/

Here is the good news. VLC is cross platform. You can run it on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.

Once I installed VLC I was happily watching the DVD I paid good money for, on the hardware I paid good money for, despite the fact that Microsoft wanted to dictate to me how and when I could enjoy my legally obtained media. Oops there I go again starting to rant.