Categories
Reference Tech Talk

listsrv – PatchManagement.org

If you are an Systems Administrator that is responsible for Patching and Updating Servers and Workstations, it is HIGHLY recommend that you subscribe to the FREE PatchManagement.org’s listsrv!

PatchManagement.org is hosted by Shavlik Technologies, and is updated continuously!

Since the “group” is geared toward Sys Admins, the conversation are very topical and technical and one can learn a great deal!

Again, HIGHLY recommended!

– Andrew
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Categories
Clean Up Utilities

Corrupt .Net (dotNet) files

Recently, I have been running into some applications errors that can be traced back to corrupt .Net (dotNet) file(s).

In some cases, using the “normal” Add/Removed (appwiz.cpl) will work, but in some EXTREME cases, you might need a little more.

Aaron Stebner has an application for you!

.NET Framework Cleanup Tool User’s Guide

As Aaron mentions in his blog and guide, this tools will get rid of EVERYTHING, so before you use it, make sure you have installers available to you for the versions that you are deleting!

– Andrew
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Categories
Software Tech Talk

Excel/Word 2007 “The Document Information Panel was unable to load”

Does the following sound like something you have had happen to you?

“I select the Office button > Prepare > Properties, I get the message “the document information panel was unable to load”.”

It seems that several folks have been running into this issue with both 2007 MS Excel and Word, and there is not a very good explanation of why it occurs, but a potential simple resolution for me was the following:

  1. Close your MS Excel/Word application;
  2. Copy the “IPEDINTL.DLL” from
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Designer Tools\Office\121033
> to <
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\121033
  1. Re-launch the application, and try again.

Thanks to the folks at: PC Review (UK), and Ben at Freewarecritic on Blogspot.com for the answer!

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Categories
00 - Alerts Website

Forums/Website Rebuild (August 2009)

Recently, August 6th, 2009, I Upgraded this site from DotNetNuke (DNN) 5.0.1 to 5.1.1, and for the most part, it went well, but there was one nagging issue that was driving me NUTS!

After the Upgrade, the Mode Bar was showing up for ALL Users, including Visitors!

The Mode Bar is only suppose to show up for folks with Administrator rights, so they can perform needed tasks, and with the ‘it’ showing, I thought that Visitors might be alarmed that something was wrong (which it was…).

Needless to say, I spent a great deal of time trying to track down and correct this issue, and posted to several different forums looking for help:

DotNetNuke.com – Help with mode bar issue

Snapsis.com – Hide Mode: View / Edit Control bar unless user has edit permission to tab

What was really weird was that all of my reads seemed to indicate that this was a DNN 4.x issue!

After about two weeks of trying everything that folks had suggested, I finally “Nuked” the whole website (8/19) and started from a Fresh, Clean install of DNN 5.1.

So that bring me to this post.

I am currently rebuilding the whole Site and Forums area from scratch, and have also done a little house-keeping and redesign.

Unfortunately, even though I backed up all the Forum posts, there is no way that I can recreate the original Posting dates and times.

The content has been preserved, but not the timestamps.

Sorry!

So for the next couple of days, I will be re-posting all the Original content (Oh joy, rapture and bliss!), so please bear with us as the information is being replaced.

I hope to have it all done in the next day or two…

In the mean time, all the Forums are up and running, so feel free to post!

Thanks again for stopping by!

– Andrew
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Categories
How to(s)? Information Open Source Reference Software Tech Talk Website

DotNetNuke Upgrade (5.0.x) – The Long Way

The following steps have been written for a remote shared hosting environment, and have been used in a DNN 5.0.1 to 5.1.1 upgrade.

  1. Backup your website files;
  2. Backup your database file;
  3. Download the lasted package;
    1. Most folks use the “Update” package, but others seem to prefer the “Install”
  4. Backup and then Verify/Modify your web.config (Step not need in DNN version 4.6.2 and above)
    1. Database connection strings in <connectionStrings> section
      1. Data Source=(your server name);Initial Catalog=(your db name);user id=(your db user);password=(your db password);” providerName=”System.Data.SqlClient”/>
    2. Database connection strings in <appSettings> section
      1. Data Source=(your server name);Initial Catalog=(your db name);user id=(your db user);password=(your db password);”/>
  5. Backup and Modify <add key=”AutoUpgrade” value=”false” /> in web.config from true to false;
    1. Change this to prevent accidental upgrade from an outside source during your Upgrade file transfer [Reference Link]
  6. Add the a file named “App_Offline.htm” to your root directory;
    1. By adding this file, it will take your site off line. [Reference Link]
  7. Replace/Move the Unzipped files into the active site;
    1. Some Hosting environments allow one to Upload a Zip file and then Unzip to over write the existing files.
    2. Manually replace files/directories.
      1. Unzip the Update/Install package on your Local Hard drive
      2. Use something like FileZilla to view and move files and directories
      3. This can take 45-60 minutes
      4. Allows one to get a better understanding of the internal “plumbing” of DNN
  8. Backup and Modify <add key=”AutoUpgrade” value=”true” /> in web.config from false to true;
  9. Rename or Delete “App_Offline.htm” to your root directory;
    1. One can just add the “.bak” extension and leave the file in place for future use.
      1. Example: “App_Offline.htm.bak”
  10. Browse to
    1. During this process, all new web.config changes are added [Reference Link]
  11. The Upgrade window should appear, and give a progress status line for each item or event that is happen.
    1. This takes approximately 5-10 minutes.
  12. Your done!
    1. Total time: 60-75 minutes

Additional Resources:

DotNetNuke – “Chat About It” Forum – “Upgrade Steps”

– There are additional links within this thread

Mitchel Seller “DNN Saint” – Main Website

– This site has a TON of great DNN related info!

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