Friday morning here in Portland, a web hosting customer could not check their email without an error saying that their mail server wasn’t found, and they couldn’t see their own website either.

Initial attempts to help her proved fruitless, and after trying everything, she was sadly told that it appeared to be a Frontier DNS problem.

Subsequently, we had several people over the weekend  with the exact same issue, and we’re not a large host,  so depending on how wide spread this problem is, a lot of people might be affected!

Frontier recently took over Verizons ISP service  here in parts of Portland Oregon, and without getting too technical, here’s what’s wrong…

The Frontier DNS Settings Need Changing in Your Modem

The DNS settings that were put into the modems when they were put  into the customer offices and homes are not functioning correctly, and need updating by Frontier.

I wish I could be more specific, but with so many models of modem installed by Verizon over the past 10 years since DSL came along, there’s simply no way to tell you exactly where to go to fix this.

Here’s how to fix the Frontier “I can’t see my website” problem.

1. Log into your modem IP address – (if you don’t do that then you’re going to have to call Frontier support)
2. Figure out how to change your DNS settings, from the hardcoded BAD ones, of which there appeared to be several, and check the box that says something like “obtaind DNS automatically”

Our own hosting customers have likely solved the problem by now,  so I’m putting these instructions out here for anyone else who happens to need them.

If you own your own domain, and suddenly cannot get your own e-mail or website, then you might try this on your modem and see if it works.

Can someone at Frontier please fix those bad Verizon DNS settings?

Update 10/26
In the wake of this blog post, we discovered that nearly 35,000 domains we knew of were xperiencing this issue not only from our servers, but from the servers of others in our datacenter, and even a couple of other small web hosts and reseller acquaintances who are unrelated to our business at all.

This morning I received a very courteous phone call from Frontier, who told me how WE could fix the problem.

In layman’s terms, the internet is running out of IP addesses, and Arin is releasing IP blocks in a range that the default NS config files had blocked, as being in a “black hole”.

The default BIND source code has some hard coded default exclusions that all webhosts are going to have to change theirs.

The reason WHY the default BIND source has exclusions is still a mystery, and I suppose there’s a case to be made that all registrars for all domains should be notifying all registrants in the same way that they insist upon annual ownership verification, but that’s neither here nor there, I guess.

Thank you to Frontier for responding so quickly, and if you’re a web host, here are the instructions to “fix” your config files so this doesnt happen with other ISP’s besides Frontier as the years roll by.

Here are the relevant details that I was emailed after the phone call…

Frontier customers trying to resolve your customers sites are not able to resolve them due to what appears as our cache DNS farms (184.16.4.22, 184.16.4.23, 184.16.33.54, 184.16.33.56) are unable to contact your authoritative DNS.

We have had this issue with several providers recently. The root causes have been outdated “bogon” lists or not allowing our subnet (184.16.0.0/14) via ACL or firewall.

Thanks Frontier, for the great service!

If you leave your mail on the server, then it will eventually fill up, and when people try to e-mail or reply, they’ll get “the mailbox is over quota” or  something similar as a bounce-back message.

When that happens, you are going to have to either empty some of the mail, or increase the size of the mailbox, which would only be a temporary fix, until it fills up again. No matter what the device, cell phone or desktop, you have to change your email program behavior.

The default behavior of all e-mail programs is to remove mail from the server once it’s been downloaded. However, as more and more people want to receive mail in multiple places, they have changed their mail settings, and have even been told to do so by the telephone company’s tech support, and now they are having problems.

Here’s how to correct the root cause, but remember – you still have to go empty your mailbox at your host.

The screen shots and steps are for Outlook, but if you use any of a dozen other programs, on your computer or your phone, the concepts are always almost identical…

Go to Tools – account settings -

Then highlight the mailbox and hit the “change” button -

Hit the “more settings” button in the lower right”

Go to the Advanced tab and UNcheck the box that says “leave mail on server”  (or at least set it to empty when your deleted items folder)

Don’t forget that if people are getting bounce messages now, you’re also going to have to login to your web hosting control panel, an empty out some of the mail that sitting there. Remember it’s not the number of e-mails that’s the problem, it’s generally the large file attachments that are filling you up past the quota that you have set for each mailbox.

I put this here as a quick reference for hosting clients  but I hope it helps others…

This weekend, I took some video (of my son being blatantly facemasked with no penalty, and then gang tackled In flag football with a minor 5 yarder), and I wanted to share that video with some other parents. (Yes that’s the kind of guy I am

Anyway, I just needed to get it out of my camcorder and onto my laptop to edit and email, but I couldn’t find Windows Movie Maker to edit the clip under Start > All Programs > Accessories, where I KNOW it used to be.

I haven’t used WMM it in almost three years, and I don’t know where it went, but now it’s apparently no longer on ANY of the 4 XP pro machines our family owns. WTF?

Well it turns out it’s not really “gone” – just my menu item is – but it took seemingly forever for me to finally find this painfully slow video -
showing me how to get it started.

To get Windows Moviemaker “back” on your PC, Go to to the Start Button > Run – and then type moviemk – Press enter or hit OK, and it will open.

Need to make a shortcut?

(In Windows XP)   Right click an empty spot on your Desktop and choose “New > Shortcut”

Then just type (or copy / paste)  the path of the execcutable file – in this case, with Windows on your C drive just use this -

C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\moviemk.exe

Name is as you wish, and press finish

And you’ll get your shortcut back!

The last time I remember something like this happening was when “Microsoft Front Page Express” disappeared from Windows 98 after the version B updates.

If this method doesn’t work for you, then perhaps you simply never had it o begin with for some reason, and you can download the XP version here from Microsoft

If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, this won’t work, but you can download this Vista version that works on both Win7 and Vista, and is far better than this terrible Windows Live Movie Maker.

I wonder why the shortcut to Windows Movie Maker  was removed in the first place?

I’ve had my share of issues with Comcast in the past, and this one is just as frustrating.

Just like many of my issues with them so far, it’s completely inconsistent from market to market, so their support department seems to know nothing about it.

Anyone hosting their own domain somewhere, yet having Comcast as an ISP is continually being forced to jump through new hoops in order to send mail from their own domain.

Until now these hoops have been to verify your outgoing mail settings and change your SMTP port to 587 (or another port for your local market).

Now there’s another inconsistent change that’s not affecting everyone.

As a Portland web host we have three mail servers that our clients use,  and for the past three days, all users that are on our #1 server are unable to send mail to other Comcast addresses.

To make matters worse, Comcast is then misreporting the problem, sending the end user a link, where their page says that their mail server is “blocked as spam”. (For the record, this mail server is not on any spam blacklists at this time).

So, now we are forced to explain to each complaining customer that this is some sort of problem or mistake on Comcasts end, AND we then have to explain that Comcast is also showing them incorrect information.

I have verified that even when you change to port 587 for your outgoing mail server, if the address you are sending to is another Comcast address, then the mail bounces back with this message -

<actualnameremoved@comcast.net>:
Connected to 76.96.62.116 but greeting failed.
Remote host said: 554 IMTA02.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net comcast 208.70.160.19 Comcast block for spam. Please see http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/BL000000

This message says that our mail server (208.70.160.19) has contacted the Comcast mail server, who is blocking the message as spam. WRONG.

Visiting the help.comcast link is of no use to the end user, but as the server administrator I was able to follow the directions and submit our removal request at www.comcastsupport.com/rbl as directed.

Imagine my surprise when I got this e-mail back -

Thank you for contacting Comcast Customer Security Assurance. We have received and reviewed your RBL removal request.

Below each IP address you submitted in your request, we have included the result of our research. Please do not reply to this message.
208.70.160.19

Your request for IP block removal has been denied for the following reason:

- You have been blocked from emailing the Comcast network because we have determined that you are sending email from a dynamic/residential IP within the Comcast domain.

Comcast does not allow subscribers to send email from a mail server other than smtp.comcast.net. All mail should be sent through Comcast’s mail server.

For information on configuring your machine to use smtp.comcast.net, please follow the link below.

http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/BL002

If you need to run your own mail server, please contact our Commercial Services organization at support_biz@cable.comcast.com

Sincerely,
Comcast Customer Security Assurance

Did you note the bolded statement that “Comcast does not allow subscribers to send email from a mail server other than smtp.comcast.net” ?

If that’s really a policy, then why is only ONE of our mail servers affected, and then, only for mail which is sent to other Comcast email addresses?

Do you suppose this is just a mistake by a server administrator who misunderstood the direction he was given?

Or, do you think they were really told to block all outgoing mail from any servers other than their own, and that the change outbound port 25 to 597 fix will no longer work soon?

If you are suddenly having this problem here is a workaround to fix it:

Open your e-mail program and change your outgoing mail server from mail.yourdomain.com. (Screenshots are from Outlook 2007, another nightmare)

Change Outgoing SMTP – smtp.comcast.net and go to “Advanced”

Be sure to CHECK THE BOX (or leave checked) – My outgoing Server requires Authentication”

Then change to “Verify using” and type in your comcast username and pw

BUT WAIT – THERES MORE
In order to get this working, you MUST ALSO change your outgoing computer port to 587 – So I THINK they’ll be screwing this up too.

WTF is going on, Comcast?

I’m not ashamed to admit that I have avoided Windows Vista since it first came out.

Although I’m a Microsoft Action Pack subscriber and received my first version of Vista well over a year ago, I’ve continued to function in an XP environment not only because it works, but because I KNOW it.

I spend far too many waking hours using a computer to take the time to learn something new if it’s not a Macintosh completely necessary, especially when the majority of the world seems to agree that Vista pretty much stinks.

Just like I did with Windows ME, my intention was to skip it entirely, or at least wait a couple of years until Vista service pack 3 gets undoubtedly had things working properly.

Stuck with Vista for Christmas
Since my wife’s computer died about a year ago, she’s been happily using my laptop, which I rarely need to use myself.

This past few months though, I’ve been out of town so much that she’s really found it to be inconvenient to have to go into my home office to use my desktop. She’s mentioned in a couple of times now, so I figured, “Hey there’s a Christmas gift idea” so I’m happy to do it.

I began looking about two weeks ago for something I could buy, and my plan was to simply wipe it out and put on my own legal copy of Windows XP.

Unfortunately, of the four different sub $600 models which I had narrowed down , not a single one of them was compatible with Windows XP.

Had I been smart about it I would’ve pre-ordered something from Dell and paid the extra money to “downgrade” to Windows XP, but here it is December 20, and the time has come where Vista really is a necessary evil.

So, yesterday I got an amazing deal on a laptop with two gigs of RAM at Best Buy, with a 160 gig hard drive, and Intel Dual core Duo processor, and a 15+ inch widescreen. All that for 429 bucks – so this morning I set about the task of getting it ready to as a Christmas gift.

Since my initial plan to give it a Vista-ectomy was out the window, all I had to do was transfer all her data from her latest backup over to the new computer, then reinstall her software, and I’d be back in business.

It really should’ve taken less time, but there are quite a few things that are so dramatically different in Vista that it was quite a learning experience.

It’s no longer “Mine”
The first thing I noticed was that there is no more “My” anything. It took me awhile to get used to calling them My Folders, but I do, and I don’t intend to stop. I guess the reason they got rid of it was because it did sound pretty stupid when you verbalizr the name of a file in the “Scott’s My Documents My Datasources folder”, but I’ve gotten used to it

Workgroup Settings
Getting it on the wireless Internet was pretty easy, but getting it on my home network was a challenge. I used to know what I was doing in peer to peer networking, but in Vista, I felt completely lost.

In Windows XP, joining a network was simple, because “Network” did not mean your wireless home Internet connection. Apparently Microsoft has redefined what the average person thinks of as a “network”, so it took me a while to figure out how to change the workgroup name, to get the new computer on our home network for file sharing.

In the end, I was able to go to the… Umm… “Button formerly known as Start” – and highlight the word “Computer”, then right click Properties. Poking aroung there and finding network options got me nowhere, but I was able to click on a link called “advanced system properties”.

From there I was able to will go to the left tab, “Computer Name” and I could see the name of my workgroup that I wanted to change, and a button to “Change” the actual name of the computer. By deciding to rename the computer, by deciding to rename the computer, I accidentally stumbled across the way to change the name of the workgroup.

I’m sure this is not how Microsoft intended me to find it, but I found it and renamed it to our home network workgroup, and a subsequent reboot brought up all of my local network files computers and folders. Hooray!

File Structure Completely Changed – Again
Everything is in a different place with Windows Vista, and that’s extremely frustrating.

In changing from the Windows 98/98 environment to XP, Microsoft trained us to use what I call the “Documents and Settings” structure. I’m sure there’s an official name for it, but I think you know what I’m talking about.

In the old 95/98 environment everything was in one folder and was pretty simple to figure out.

Then in Windows XP, “Everybody’s stuff” got organized by user in the C:\Documents and Settings folder and from there you could get to each individuals documents, desktop, favorites etc.

There were suddenly multiple folders to hassle with, and although it made structural sense, you had to actually know how to UN-hide files in Windows to get to any individual Application Data or Local Settings.

The simple task of reinstalling and importing your old Outlook became a complicated IT task for newbies, but we accepted it because we had to. Fine.

Now along comes Windows Vista, where just like with Office 2007, they have made changes for no apparent reason, that so far, at least in my first couple of hours dinking with it, seem to benefit nobody.

It’s almost as if (again like Office 2007) things were rearranged because somebody had nothing better to do, and millions of people are forced to learn something over again for no reason.

So, the file structure in Windows Vista is c:/users/username, and all the file folders inside are named differently too, with “My” everything now missing. This means my elaborate and detailed pain free back up and restore software won’t work easily, and so I’m now manually moving all of her stuff over as I write this.

Luckily for me, my wife and I planned to spend the day shopping together, but we’re completely stranded at the bottom of a steep unplowed hill in a rare Portland snow & ice storm, and so have nothing better to do than learn Vista on this last weekend before Christmas.

Oh, the things we do for the ones we love… Merry Christmas.

Late last night I added some notes to a MS notepad document on a laptop, and I neglected to save. This morning, Microsoft rebooted my computer (for my safety) and once again I lost some valuable notes.

I remember writing about this once before before, so I looked through my own blog or reference of how to stop these irritating XP automatic reboots, and once I found the instructions, I saw that my directions were lacking info for people that might not know how to get to the “Group Policy Editor”.

So if you have Windows XP service pack 2  here is exactly how to stop this annoying Microsoft morning reboot after a Windows update:

First you have to start the group policy editor –

• Start – Run – and type mmc – then hit Enter.
• Go to File – Add/Remove Snap in and hit ADD. (in XP Pro SP3, I could not do this – see alternate instructions below the first photo)
• Under Available Stand-alone Snap-ins, click Group Policy, and then click Add, then finish to edit your local machine.s browse to the Windows update section and make a change -

Simply browse under the local computer policy to this path – local computer policy\computer configuration\administrative templates\Windows components\Windows update.

*Update 2/2010 In Windows XP Pro SP3, here are some different instructions:

Change your “No auto restart for scheduled automatic update installations” to “Enabled” by double-clicking on it on the right side.  Save everything and reboot, and you’re good to go.

(When you close the “group policy editor” it will ask you if you want to save and yes I did, with the default location and file name)

PS – While I was in there, I poked around hoping to enable something like “no crashing software while in use” but I couldn’t find it. If anyone knows where that is please let me know

more about Group Policy Editor at Microsoft

There is nothing worse than computer problems, and there’s nothing better than free software to prevent them in the first place.

One of my favorite utilities of all time, Winpatrol,  has just updated to their 2008 version, and the company owner has provided me with an affiliate version that I can give away at no charge.

I used to have a computer repair store in Portland, and our shop fixed anywhere from 30 to 60 computers a week that people brought in from various problems. Additionally, we did a lot of on-site service too, dealing with small businesses, setting up networks, file sharing etc.

While some of the computer work that got done was upgrading or replacing components, the vast majority of our work had to do with “problems”, meaning Windows just wasn’t behaving the way it was supposed to.

Nine out of ten times the problem was not with Windows, but with third-party software that had been unknowingly starting up on the user’s system, sucking up all their available memory.

Whether that software was spyware, or a legitimate piece of software that simply attached itself to the Windows startup process, making the computer run more efficiently always involved removing these startup programs from memory.

As far back as 1998 I was writing articles not only about the search engines, but about how to improve performance on your computer, and even how to be your own IT department. A few years ago a local consultant named Steve Shank told me about a program called Winpatrol, and as soon as I tried it I was hooked.

Everything about Winpatrol is designed to give the user complete control over what runs and what doesn’t run on your system, so you can maximize your performance.

There’s an easy user interface that lets you see what’s starting up each time Windows does, and you can remove or disable them as you see fit. In some cases, the change can be so dramatic, that it will feel like you’ve got a new computer at your desk.

After my recent hard drive loss I had to reinstall windows, and after completion, here’s everything that Winpatrol helped me disable with a simple click of the mouse. Do you think my performance improved?

Choosing to “disable” something doesn’t remove any functionality from your system, it just prevents it from starting up when your system boots, so things can be started manually, if needed. If you’re not sure what something is, there’s an info screen that tells more about each individual item, like the company name and when it was added to your system.

The free version gives the same full functionality as the paid version, but the paid version has a few benefits, including access to a massive knowledgebase about nearly every program under the sun, and “real time” infiltration detection. True geeks like me will want that stuff, but for most people, the free version is everything they could want. (Personally, I still think he gives away far too much for free, but it’s gained him quite a huge fan base)

It’s very easy to figure out, with an intuitive user interface, and a quick and easy setup. However, if you are a complete beginner, here’s a link to a short video demonstrating how I downloaded, installed, and configured it on a system recently. The video is in Flash, and will open in another window.

When I was interviewed by a local television station a few years ago on the dangers of spyware and how users could control it, I recommend the Winpatrol program on the air, and it turned out that Bill Pytlovani (the company owner) had a daughter that lived here in Portland. After seeing the on the news, she phoned him, and he got in touch with me.

Ever since then we’ve stayed in touch on and off, and I remain a big fan to this day. Here’s a link to Bill’s blog, and here’s a direct download link to the free 2008 version of his software, which I am 100% certain will improve your computers performance. Try it, and please comment here and tell me what you think!

How many add-ons, toolbars, bookmarks, plugins, and other tweaks have you made to your default Firefox installation? If you’re a specialty user, you may have several dozen add ons, and in my own case, I’ve got 27 separate Firefox extensions alone, (which I now know because I just counted them).

With all of those, and with the the custom toolbar and bookmark options I’ve managed to tweak, recreating what I’ve “created” over time with my Firefox is just not something that could be done without a monumental effort. Just like Windows, in order to to do my job, I must have certain plug ins, just as surely as I need Outlook, Word, and Excel.

After my monumental computer problems Wednesday night, and reinstalling Windows on Thursday, adding Firefox was one of the first things I did. Well I’m here to tell ya about one Firefox add on that I would have been lost without, called FEBE.

FEBE
Each night for the past year, FEBE has been backing up all of of my Firefox bookmarks, all of my plugins, extensions, add-ons, and web browsing preferences, my cookies, muy usernames, my passwords, and anything else at all that has been “personalized”.

Therefore, using FEBE, in under three minutes, I was able to download the FEBE plugin, and restore my previous profile, saving me literally hours of tweaking and fine tuning.

To be honest, from simply looking up website user names and passwords, to setting up a custom toolbar with my desired buttons & folders for webhosting accounts and other logins, it could be over a dozen hours to re-do, and I STILL likely wouldn’t likely have gotten it complete.

Another great thing about FEBE is that I can export my user profile, and then install the FEBE add on to another Firefox installation on my laptop, or any other pc, then importing “My” Firefox preferences.

FEBE saved me SO MUCH TIME just now, that I was able to write this post, and even make a donation to their cause.

I’m a board member of the Oregon Computer Consultants Association and at each monthly meeting, there’s a few minutes where people ask questions about strange behavior, and get help from their peers.

Well, the meeting was last night (Ben Lee from Intel) , and I had nothing to ask, but TODAY is another matter. The following message just went out to the entire group -

Hi everyone – Here’s my Stump the Geek question…
I rebooted my computer this AM and went snowboarding.

I came home and it said “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt…” etc. –

So, I hit the arrow key, and got an instant reboot, instead of allowing me to choose “last known config” or Safe Mode, or anything.

It just booted up to where it says, “boot from CD” and sits there.

I put in my Windows CD, booted off it, and attempted a repair installation, but the C:/ Windows installation is not found.

Assuming I had a bad C drive, I disconnected all drives, took the C out, added a brand new C, and partially installed Windows clean –

After one of the reboots at install, now I get this –

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

So I got here to my issue on Microsoft support –

Unfortunately, I cant edit anything like that says, since I can’t even remember any Dos commands (not that I knew many) and figured I’d just try a NEW clean windows install, but…

NOWI can’t even get it to boot again from the CD. it just skips past now matter how many times I actually press any key to boot from CD. It then jumps right to that same message.

My keyboard works fine to go into the bios, and FYI, this is Windows XP on a dual core Intel chip, on an Intel 965 chipset board, 4 gigs of ram

I found someone else having the exact same problem back in 2006, – Partial Windows install, then stuck unable to boot from CD with my same message – but the thread had no resolution –

I’m lucky I have all my data on the F drive, and even backed up too on a USB drive, so I just need @#$%ing Windows and Office installed, AV etc.

At 9am tomorrow, I’m carrying it somewhere, (maybe the side of the Broadway Bridge) unless someone has any ideas for me, ‘cause I’ve had it.

Qwest Internet service here in Portland Oregon has apparently begun to randomly block port 25 for its customers, just like Comcast did last year. This renders users helpless to send email using their own domain from their web host’s email server like most businesses do.

Also just like Comcast, they are not doing it to all users yet, and they have provided no notice to users for whom they have done this. It’s only due to spending several hours on the phone last summer that I can offer this solution.

If this has happened to you, simply open your mail client, go to the advanced properties of the mail account, and change your outgoing mail server (SMTP) from Port 25, to port 587, then save configuration, and restart your Outlook or Outlook express.

Port 587 is another port that many web hosts provide for exactly this situation. While I can attest to its success on the majority of hosted mail servers (including our web hosting servers in Portland), it may not work for everyone.

In the event changing to port 587 does not solve your problem, rather than calling Qwest, call your web host, and explain that “you suspect that your ISP has blocked port 25 for outgoing mail. What other port do they recommend you try?”

At that point, they will either open another port, or tell you the existing passport to use for their Web hosting.

The reasons Qwest (and Comcast) have done this to people with no notice escape me, but there ya go!

Last night I was working ofn a few things on my wifes laptop while we were watching a TV show, and like always, I didn’t “put everything away” and I left a Notepad document open with a few notes, and a few browser windows.

This morning when I got up, I went to the laptop to “get my stuff” and found that Microsoft had seized control overnight and rebooted my computer.

This is because, like most people, I leave my computers set to update automatically. Most of my hard core tech friends scoff at automatic updates, but for me, I know they’ll just never get done otherwise.

I REALLY wanted to recover my work, so I had to sort through the browser history and try to remember and recreate what I was working on. What a pain in the neck.

Doesn’t it make you wonder why some updates are SO important that they have to shut down my computer without saving my documents? If I try to manually reboot while accidentally leaving a Notepad document open, Windows won’t even let me, but when THEY want to reboot me, too bad, goodbye document.

A different option could be chosen for auto-updates, but none of them give me what I need, which is, “download and install Windows updates, but don’t force a reboot of my computer”.

Long ago I ran across the somution to this problem, but had never implemented it on my wifes laptop. So, thanks to this article, here are the steps to performing the deed.

**WARNING*** – I take no responsibility for you hacking away incorrectly in your registry, but I can verify that it worked on my desktop.

Running any version of XP prior to Service Pack 2? Back up your registry, then add or change this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Policies\ Microsoft\ Windows\ WindowsUpdate\AU

If it doesn’t already exist, create the DWord value “NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers”. Set it to 0 if you want Windows to automatically restart, or 1 to prevent automatic restart. Then exit and reboot your computer. The result: As long as users are logged on the system, it won’t take matters into its own hands.

Post-XP SP2, one user reports success at disabling automatic restarting after updates on XP Home by:

1. Disabling Windows Automatic Updates;
2. Opening Task Manager (by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del);
3. Ending all instances of wuauclt.exe, then;
4. Making the registry changes noted above.

Once Service Pack 2 is installed, XP Pro, 2000 and 2003 users can stop automatic reboots by editing Group Policy. Start the Group Policy editor, select Windows Update in the Windows Components portion of the Administrative Template, and choose No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations.

* update 7/2008 - If you’re not sure how use Group Policy editor, I wrote another post on Stopping Windows Automatic reboots for users of XP Service Pack 2

After reformatting my computer, I posted about easily editing the “save attachment as” dialog box to enable me to save Outlook file attachments in the folders of my choice.

That was a big help, but only solved half the problem, because without installing some third pary software like Tweak UI, I was unable to find a way to do it in my regular Windows “save as” dialog box. Even with 4 gigs of ram, my PC struggles with Dragon Naturally Speaking and Camtasia always running and ready to go, as well as all of my usual stuff, so using Tweak UI gives me memory problems.

All I wanted was to be able to “save as” to my Downloads folder, or my Pictures folder, without having to navigate through folder after folder on my computer. In other words, I wanted efficiency! (Perhaps Vista offers that, but I’ll never know, since I know too many people that have sworn off it)

This morning while waiting for the coffee to brew, I grabbed my wifes laptop, and ran across these instructions to set custom dialog boxes which gave nice clear step by step instructions with screen shots for using a built in Windows utility, so now my “Save As” dialog box can look like this…

Thanks for these perfect instructions, but does anyone know how to add MORE boxes?