Are you deploying browser proxy settings by setting a proxy server and attempting to manage a proxy bypass list? There is a better way..

Fortunately Jason Curnow, who’s had many years experience working with PAC files, has a website where he’s documented his experiences and shows you how to create your own – The Proxy PAC File Guide.

Any proxy server or firewall (a firewall is going to understand the network topology better than a proxy server) worth it’s salt will do this type of work for you. I know my favourite firewall, ISA Server does – Automatic Detection Concepts in ISA Server 2006 (I’m sure other proxy servers or firewalls do too).

In complex environments you may not be able to rely on your proxy server to handle browser configurations completely, so you’ll need to roll up your sleeves and roll your own PAC file.

So why a PAC file? Here’s a couple of scenarios that demonstrate the awesomeness of a PAC file:

• Laptop users don’t need to disable their proxy settings when they’re outside the corporate network (OK, the ISA Server firewall client can do this too); and
• If you have internal web applications hosted across WAN links (e.g. your users are in London but SAP is hosted in Ireland), you can use a PAC file to direct specific URLs to proxy servers that handle that SAP traffic only, whilst every thing else goes via your Internet proxy.

So go and check it out, Jason has done some excellent work – The Proxy PAC File Guide.

Other Resources

• How to disable automatic proxy caching in Internet Explorer
• Automatic configuration does not support certain file types in Internet Explorer 8.0
• How Internet Explorer uses the cache for DNS host entries

Use a PAC file to make proxy settings dynamic is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

File Mount has a pretty impressive feature set, but its’ simple approach to handling ISOs is what I’m really enjoying. There’s pleny of options to suit (hopefully) everyone when mounting an image:

If you don’t need to mount an ISO to a drive letter, File Mount will convert the ISO to a folder which you can then view directly in Explorer:

Works well for in-place upgrades to newer Windows 7 builds..

Pismo File Mount for using ISOs in Windows 7 is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

If you’re looking to install Flash Player 10 on Presentation Server/XenApp, make sure you’ve got XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 first or hotfix PSE450R02W2K3028 for Presentation Server 4.5 Hotfix Rollup Pack 3 for XenApp 5.0 and Presentation Server 4.5 (x86 here and x64 here).

If it’s direct downloads you’re after for deployment in your organisation, the same direct download links work, just be sure to apply for a distribution license before-hand.

Flash Player 10 Available, Still No x64 Support is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

AF3KALKNHEU777AGRBZ672EKB6I53P6VRND7PLPHCVFWGNSDNB4WYK55HE7YX2TWTLU78M8KLYZ4QERNT3K56OH6TSAXC

(I’ve changed the code slightly to protect the guilty).

My Product Code Is Bigger Than Yours.. is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

I kid you not, this is a error message I saw yesterday in an Oracle Forms application.

What happened here today was a miracle is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

This is a great way to edit MSI files and create transforms, being able to see the MSI with the Components and Features views lifts this tool far above Orca.

There’s not much point for me to go through all of the great things InstEd does, because it’s completely free, so grab yourself a copy and take it for a spin.

You’ll also find some great posts on editing MSIs and Transforms at the InstEd blog too.

Free MSI Editor: InstEd is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Word cannot save changes to the global template because it was opened with read-only access. Do you want to save the changes in a template with a different name?

This is caused when a NORMAL.DOT is located in the Workgroup templates location. If a Word template with this name exists in this location, Word will open this file first and will not open the users NORMAL.DOT or will not create one if it does not already exist. This is obviously an issue when multiple users open Word or if they don’t have write access to the Workgroup templates location. The solution is to ensure that NORMAL.DOT never exists in the Workgroup templates location.

Microsoft has a knowledgebase article that details this issue:

SUMMARY
Microsoft Word does not support the sharing of a single Normal.dot file among multiple users. This is true whether or not the file is marked as read-only.

MORE INFORMATION
The Normal.dot file stores user-specific settings and is not designed to be shared among multiple users on a single computer or over a network. Word accesses the Normal.dot file at various times and makes changes to it based on the user’s actions. As a result, Word must have full read and write access to the file at all times.

You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word

You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

No amount of rebooting would fix the issue. After digging around I found this forum post. The fix was easy – delete the following registry key and try the installer again:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\19659239224e364682fa4baf72c53ea4

Daemon Tools: You must reboot after a previous operation is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

When you hit the hotkey again you get this:

As you can see the user tile stays where it is and if you keep hitting your hotkey the start menu moves back and forth between these two locations. It must be a feature .

Now That’s Not What I Expected is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Word cannot register your account. The provider where you are trying to publish is unavailable. Contact your provider for assistance.

Check out the following screen shot for an example, and note the missing R in register

In my case, we are behind a proxy server that authenticates access to the Internet. By bypassing the proxy I was able to get Word to successfully register the account. Now this worked for me because my blog is on a server that is on our internal network. If your blog is on an external server, you’ll have to ensure that you can get to that server unauthenticated.

By the way, this is my first blog post from Word 2007 (Beta 2 Tech. Refresh)

Blogging with Word 2007 is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Here’s a list of known issues:

1. IE ActiveX’s enable/disable setting NOT working
2. Script Error problem
3. Password Manager NOT working
4. Shift+Delete(Cut) NOT working
5. Button has no XP Style (theme)
6. All popup windows always open in new IE Tab
7. Navigate history list NOT supported
8. SSL icon NOT supported
9. Site’s favicon NOT supported

My new favourite Firefox extension is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005

PDC ’05 Presentations is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

BriForum Video: Rick Mack on Application Tuning and Debugging for Terminal Server Environments

Troubleshooting Applications is post from stealthpuppy.com. Except as noted otherwise, this work is © 2005-2012 Aaron Parker and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.