Office 2007, IE, FF show in 8 bit (ish) color in XP

I just came across a very frustrating issue that took me far longer to solve than it should. A user came to me because Office 2007 applications had no color. What I saw when I checked was that they were displayed in what appeared to be 8 bit color regardless of the color depth set on the display. Websites also when viewed in IE or FF were missing colors or images. I tried deleting registry keys for Office to attempt to reset any user modified settings to no avail. I downloaded Chrome in an attempt to check if it was related to some shared rendering library between the other two. What I found was that Chrome looked fine!

Bewildered and frustrated I frantically searched Google and found somewhere (sorry, I didn't save the link) a mention about High Contrast Mode. Now I'm familiar with high contrast color schemes, and in fact I double checked the color scheme and reset it to Windows Classic early in the process. What I was unfamiliar with is the Accessibility Options control panel setting "High Contrast Mode". It just so happens that this had been turned on. It appears that Office, IE, and FF were all attempting to honor this setting and make the computer more accessible by displaying everything in a low color high contrast mode. For whatever reason Chrome ignores this setting.

Unchecking that box fixed the problem across all affected applications.

Word Clouds

I hate them. That is all.

Alternative to the meta key

I use and love my Unicomp Classic 101. When I bought it I was primarily using Linux and didn't see the need to have a Windows (also known as meta, super, that-one-between-ctrl+alt, etc). Since moving to mostly Windows 7 though, I've noticed that there is functionality built around that key. I believe this is increasingly showing up in Linux window managers as well. If any of you are in the same boat as me, fear not! In Windows 7 ctrl-esc provides the same functionality!

Microsoft Security Essentials

I never thought I'd find myself recommending a product from Microsoft, but Microsoft Security Essentials billed as "The anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program" rocks. Free for up to 10 computers this thing lives up to those claims. Since there's no "premium" version unlike almost every other Windows antivirus, there's no need for nagging, or ads. The updates are smooth and require no user intervention, unlike a particular open-source windows av. MSE also provides real-time protection which in some similar products is a premium feature. I really haven't found anything to dislike about this product just yet, and I will certainly be installing it on the computers of everyone for whom I end up providing pro-bono tech support.

Enable telnet client in Windows 7

The telnet client is inexplicably disabled in a default install of Windows 7. It's there, but must be specifically enabled. Here are the instructions from technet:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. On the Control Panel Home page, click Programs.
3. In the Programs and Features section, click Turn Windows features on or off.
If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
4. In the Windows Features list, select Telnet Client, and then click OK

Annoying.

VirtualBox NIC Compatible with Server 2012 RC?

I've been toying with the Windows Server 2012 RC in VirtualBox. One of the bigger frustrations thus far was that it didn't have drivers inbox for the default virtual NIC and there are not yet readily available drivers compatible with Server 2012. Through trial and error I found that setting the NIC to "Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM)" successfully solved this issue.

Remove editing restrictions in Word 2010 with 7zip

So you forgot or lost the password to unlock that important Word 2010 form. Not to worry. After reading this post on spiceworks I worked out this technique to unlock a .docx for editing. I doubt this will work with a document that isn't readable without a password but I haven't tested. What follows is a step by step that assumes you have 7zip installed (with explorer extensions).

1. Make a copy of the original document and rename it to have the .zip extension.
2. Extract .zip file and in the contents find word\settings.xml
3. Edit settings.xml to remove the XML element beginning with w:documentprotection. Remove everything including < and >
4. Copy the word directory to the same location as your document.zip file.
5. Rename your file to word.zip
6. Right click word directory and choose 7zip -> Add to "word.zip"
7. Rename word.zip to yourformname.docx
8. Do a little dance and be happy that this episode of your life is now over.

That's all there is to it: easy as pi!