Work Life - FIX: System Error detoured.dll is missing

I had a user that called with a problem logging into her computer. Upon boot, she was greeted with a dialog box that said "Logonui.exe cannot load. The program cannot start because detoured.dll is missing from your computer..."

After some extensive research and multiple dead ends, I found a solution that worked. I'm not if the solution breaks anything in the process, but I suppose time will tell there.

NOTE: The following info relates to your system registry. Modifying your registry can lead to negative results and may even make your system unusable. Use the following information AT YOUR OWN RISK. If you do not feel comfortable with the following, the DO NOT do them. I am NOT responsible for any negative effects changes to your registry may have on your system. The following is for information only.

Basically, this is what I did:

• Managed to get logged in by repeatedly clicking the OK button.
• The error resurfaced with ANY program I tried to run.
• I just kept clicking OK to get out of error and launch the program I wanted.
• Open REGEDIT as Administrator
• Navigate to the following key:
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\
• On the right, I found the following entry:
• AppInit_DLLs
• I deleted the key (It had some kind of command in there I did not recognize, though it was NOT the detoured.dll, either. So... We'll see what adverse effects there are, if any, on the user's computer.
• Instantly, the errors disappeared. I could run any program (including the ones I had run before) without the error.
• Will scan the user's computer for malicious activity.

Note, the exact registry key info above came from:
http://www.megaleecher.net/One_Click_Solution_For_detoured.dll_Error#axzz42FLl8uGJ

Work Life: Mysterious Floating Sound Mixer Volume Control

At the office, I noticed that when I clicked on the Volume Control, the slider was floating in the middle of my left screen! I have dual monitors and that may or may not be part of the culprit. In any case, I was able to solve the problem and thought I would share my problem and solution.

First, the problem:

When I click on the volume control, it jumps to the middle of my left-most monitor:

Now, in my case, it was something to do with an ATI Catalyst update. So, if you are running ATI, you may see this issue. If you are NOT running, ATI, there is another possible solution at the bottom of this post. 

Open the Catalyst Control Center, and expand "HydraVision." After that, click on "Desktop manager:"

At the bottom of that dialog on the right, UNCHECK the box labeled "Enable Dialog Repositioning:"

After that, click APPLY and you should be good to go:

If you are not running ATI Catalyst, you might be able to fix it by doing this:

1. Right-Click the Taskbar 
2. Click Properties
3. Click "Customize..." in the Notification area section
4. UNCHECK "Always show all icons..." at bottom.
5. Click OK

See if that fixes the problem. If it STILL doesn't fix it, try repeating the steps above, but this time CHECK the box for "Always show..."

Hope this helps!

#WeirdWindowsErrors - What are you trying to say!?

I have seen my share of weird error messages and dialog boxes over the years. This one popped up as I logged into an ultrabook I use for network testing:

I guess my exercise is done for the day. Wahoo!!

Work Life: A Three-Hour Tour... USB Driver Access Denied Error

Had to post this in case I run up against it later (or someone else surfing the web comes across the same problem).

Had a user with a new USB flash drive. Insert the flash drive (Win7, 32-bit) and Windows would not recognize it on her machine. Other machines, drive worked fine.

When manually attempting to update the driver in Device Manager, system would return an "access denied" error.

Googled various similar situations. Advice ranged from wiping Windows out and reinstall to copying USBSTOR.INF and USBSTOR.DNF files from DriverStore directory on the hard drive. Tried System Restore but it would fail with "access denied" errors. Tried resetting permissions on various registry entries, system files, etc. None of that fixed our issue after an hour of troubleshooting. Went home to sleep on it at end of day.

Tried to run Combofix, but got a "permission denied" error accessing the registry.

Decided to try Tweaking.com's All-In-One fixer. I ran various permission fixes, etc.  Though that seemed to reset certain things, USB stick would still not install. But, it DID let me run ComboFix.

I waited to run ComboFix because I had been poking around MSConfig, per a forum suggestion for similar problem, and saw something weird in there. One of the services set to run was something called "SystemK." I checked it out and it is a program called "Settings Manager" from Aztec Media. It is also listed as malware. So, I took the easy way out and found it in the list of programs I could uninstall and I uninstalled it.

Then, I ran Combofix. I rebooted after Combofix, even though it did not tell me to. I wanted to be sure any services that were fixed and/or removed were still not running.

After I booted back up, I plugged in the flash drive and it failed. But, I went to Device Manager and told it to search online for drivers and that fixed it this time!

The system would not open the "What do you want to do" box, so I typed "Autorun" in the windows search box (when you click the start button) and reset to defaults. Now, that was working again.

Total time on task: 3 hours

Could I have wiped the system clean and reinstalled faster than that? Yes. But then I would have had to reinstall all the user's software (including things like Insight360, specialized mathematics instructional software and emulators, etc).

A weird side-effect? PDFs were no longer associated with Adobe Reader. That was an easy fix, though - just tell Windows what to use to open PDFs.

Hope this helps somebody out there.

HTC Touch Pro and Crashing the server

Are you having trouble getting your HTC Touch Pro (or other Windows Mobile Phone) to charge when you plug it in to a USB cable?  I was, and I was getting pretty sick of it.  I searched online for an answer, but came up empty.  I did the what I should have done in the first place: check the settings.

In SETTINGS > SYSTEM > POWER, I had an option that reads, "When the device is turned on, do not charge the battery when connected to the PC."

In my case, the option was CHECKED, meaning that the phone would NOT charged when plugged into a USB port. So, I UNCHECKED the box.

Why is this even an option!?  Who wouldn't want their phone to charge while it was plugged in?  Hmm, I'd like to hear some feedback on that one.

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I tried a new backup technique at work on Wednesday night.  The backup started at 9:00pm.  According to the event logs, at approximately 9:03pm, something went horribly wrong.  Of course, I didn't know this until this morning.  It turns out the server had been booting and rebooting all night long. Ouch.  Scratch that backup plan.  I believe the issue was related to the USB hard drive I plugged in.  Turns out the server only has USB 1.0 connections.  OY.

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I am sure I've got other thoughts running around in my head.  For example, I need to share with you the story of my experience installing Phoebe's LiveScribe on her new Windows 7 machine.  I called tech support because all of the audio files that had been attached to previous recording sessions no longer seemed to exist after the upgrade.

The tech support person said the problem was that I had upgraded the pen's firmware and I needed to downgrade in order to get the previous files off the old computer then transfer them to the new one.  I took her at her word and she emailed me a link.  The link took me to the NEW firmware that I already had on the pen.  Confused, I turned to resources online.  As I pondered and puzzled, John suggested I roll back the computer using System Restore.  That helped bring back the connection between the audio files and the PDF writing from the pen.  Of course, it also brought back the old version of the software.

I followed steps I found online, moving from 1.6 to 1.7 to 2.03 (or whatever is current).  1.6 > 1.7 went fine - all files in tact.  1.7 > 2.03 - oops, disconnect.  After some more searching, I called tech support.  This time, the guy told me that I needed to follow a series of steps that he would email me.  The steps addressed an issue where no audio files were being transferred from the pen to the computer.  Well, I followed them, even though the files (new files) were transferring fine.  After the transfer, I had new audio files but the previously existing ones (pages 1-64) were disconnected again.  Go figure.

After poking around the 'net, the LiveScribe site had a simple little line in one of it's release notes documents: A known issue reports that previously transferred audio files became disconnected from their pages after the upgrade to 2.0x.  A known, unresolved issue.  Had I known that, I could have saved myself nearly a day's worth of time.

So, if you have a LiveScribe Pen and have moved to Windows 7, let me know if your old audio files are disconnected from their PDF pages.  Or better yet, let me know if they are still connected!  I'd love to know the steps yo took to preserve the information.

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Back to Work, People!

Welcome to the first Monday at work of 2010. For many in the state of Arkansas, the winter break was extended by a snowfall that shut down many school and business north of the Little Rock area. For those of us living below the Saline County line, however, it was time to brave the cold, dodge snowflakes, and get to work.

I started the day at the office by setting up my boss's new computer, which came with Windows 7 Professional installed. She is the first at our place to have Windows 7 as a primary OS, so it will be interesting to see how things go. Having played with it a little and getting her set up, I have to say, I am ready for the change. Win7 has some neat features like Live Preview (which shows you live screenshots of running programs, like an installation running behind other windows for example). The system also automatically detected and installed her printer which blew me away compared to the nightmare that was Vista.

Once that was out of the way, I began revamping the co-op's web site (http://etsp.k12.ar.us). It still has work to be done, but it is getting more color, actual photos, and will eventually be more user-friendly (er, I hope anyway). We are also changing our corporate logo and the samples I've seen (being done in-house by Gina, one of our Teach Center workers) are lookin' good. I can't wait for us to choose one and move forward into the next phase of what SWAEC will bring to the schools of Southwest Arkansas!

Speaking of the site and photos, John and I grabbed the camera and jetted over to the site of the new building to take a couple shots and see how things were progressing. I have to say, seeing a slab there suddenly makes the project appear to be much further shead than when it was just piles of dirt with pipes sticking up!

Before Christmas Break, we had ordered 120 iPod Touch units as part of the TIE program we host. Well, due to a mix-up in processing, we had 100 shipped instead of 120. One of the conditions of placing the order was that the units could not be received during the holiday break. The day after we placed the order, I got an email listing 20 boxes heading our way for delivery on December 23. Umm, you see a problem here? Well, I was able to get those diverted and delayed until after January 4. Rather, it turns out, they were scheduled for redelivery *on* January 4th and they came in today! Normally, that is great news. Unfortunately, it seems someone put their hand in our candy jar:

This box only had TWO units in it, even though there are FIVE serial number on the box. You may also notice that the factory seal appears to be broken and then resealed. That was some serious eagle-eyeing by John on that one! I had overlooked that little piece of info. I took pictures of the box (luckily I had opened the box from the bottom by mistake!) and sent them to our contact at Apple. We'll see where things go from there!

Seriously, is it quitting time yet?