Microsoft Office 2010 icons missing in Windows 7

Since yesterday, I found the icons of Office 2010 files like Excel, Word, PPT's got replaced by the generic file icons.

I looked throughout the web for a solution but nothing worked. The primary solutions put forward were:

1. Delete the IconCache.db file in %userprofile%\AppData\Local
2. Create a registry key "Max Cached Icons" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and set it to 4096 (4MB) or 8192 (8MB)

Folks talked about fixing the "C:\Windows\Installer\" but the solution was not complete. So the steps are:

1. Open Registry Editor : regedit.exe
2. I have taken the example of Excel icons missing. So Navigate to HKCR\AppId\EXCEL.EXE
3. Look for the value for "Appid". For me the value was "{00020812-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"  - this may be different for you. So note it down.
4. No look for the value HKCR\CLSID\{00020812-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\DefaultIcon (Change the Appid value to what you noted above).
5. Find the value for "Default". For me it is : "C:\Windows\Installer\{90140000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\xlicons.exe,3"
6. Now look for this location "C:\Windows\Installer\{90140000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\xlicons.exe" in your drive. If you already have it then it is a different issue for you and look for other solutions in this thread. If you do not have this folder, copy it from some other desktop and it should work.

Good luck :-)

USB Mass Storage Issues - v2

In an earlier post USB Mass Storage Issues I talked about uninstalling MS Windows drivers and installing Intel drivers.
Today I found the issues again and found that my drives are too old. To check for your drivers check the Intel site : http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/detect.htm . Please get the latest Intel drivers and install them. Post install you should have the latest chipset drivers and you USB should be working fine.

P.S: Ealier I preferred Intel over MS drivers. Therafter I read more documentation at the Intel site and found that Intel is supporting USB driver updates from Windows update site. So for latest drivers you can get it from MS Windows update site too. Still check for the latest updates at the Intel site too.

Virtual Provider Error

Recently I faced a Virtual Provider issue on which I spent considerable amount of time but to no avail. The issue is reported multiple times in google and also in Microsoft Bug 307978 and is even marked as closed but it still comes up.
The error message is:

The VirtualPathProvider returned a VirtualFile object with VirtualPath set to '/MasterPageDir/SharedMasterPage.master.cs' instead of the expected '//MasterPageDir/SharedMasterPage.master.cs'.

All the posts mentioned that its a compilation error but how to find it out. I tried a lot of code but did not help. So the solution is:
Use EventViewer. Under Application the error will be logged as a ASP .NET 2.0 error. Looking at the details you can figure out the details of the compilation issue. :)

Solve "Access is Denied" error when opening .msc files

Today I got a very annoying error.


I tried to open services.msc and got the error:



The beauty of this error was the I was able to open the it through : My Computer :: Manage :: Services and Applications :: Services.

I googled through the error and found a lot of replies : Some of them suggesting some software restriction policy of the user not being Administrator and so on.
All did not apply to me as my computer is me personal home computer and not part of any domain and I was able to open it till a few days back (or the last time I openend it) and nothing changed in between.
So whats the issue. I am a Admin. I navigated to C:\Windows\System32 and checked the permissions for the services.msc file and as Admin I had Full Control over the file.

Then I found something special : I was able to execute "eventvwr" but not "eventvwr.msc" which gave the Access is Denied Error.

That was the Euraka moment. It had something to do the MS Management Control or "mmc.exe" which is used to open all these ".msc" files. I openend "mmc.exe" and loaded the snap-in "Services" and it loaded up fine.

Then the solution was simple :: The extension ".msc" has somehow lost the information that it needs to be "openend with" mmc.exe

So I did a right click on "services.msc" and selected "Open with". In the window I browsed to "C:\Windows\System32\mmc.exe" and phew it worked.
I checked "services.msc", "eventvwr.msc", "compmgmt.msc" and all worked fine.

Hope it works for you too :)

USB Mass Storage Issues

This all started with the 2009 New Year Party. Someone spilled some beer on my laptop and I started facing strange USB issues. So I uninstalled a few thinsg and things went worse. Sometimes the mouse wont work but a simple plugout-plugin makes it work.

Last week I tried to work on my external USB hard disk storage device and it simply did not work. Windows initially reported an error like:


Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.


Then it stopped recognizing it completely reporting Unknown Device.
So here's the way to troubleshoot it:

1. Check whether the USB external storage is working or not: I plugged in my USB external storage to another laptop and it worked. So the USB drive does not have any issue.
   
2. Check whether the laptop USB port is working or not: I used the same port for my mouse and even a keyboard and it worked. So the USB port does not have any issue.

So the problem is neither with the USB port nor with the USB device so what's the problem. The problem is the special USB feature which Mass storage devices use i.e. USB 2.0. So how to check it:

1. Go to the "My Computer" icon and do a right click + Properties. Select the "Hardware" tab on the top. You should find a "Device Manager" button in there.
   



2. Open the device manager. At the end of all components, you will find "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" (USB Controllers). I have 4 USB ports which are listed below and I have a USB 2.0 controller which sits on top of these 4 USB ports and enable USB 2.0 technology for all the 4 USB port.
   
   
3. Now the problem which we face with Mass storage drives is that they use this USB 2.0 Enhanced port. Other USB devices like mouse, keyboard, webcam use only standard USB features.
   
4. You might see all these elements in your Device Manager too. The problem lies with the driver which might have been corrupted. So to remedy it.
   
5. Select the USB2 Enhance port controller and do a Right Click + Uninstall. These will remove the existing USB2 driver.
   
6. To play safe (and to start from scratch), do a Right Click + Uninstall on the other 4 USB Controllers too. You will see the USB Root Hubs disappearing from the list.
   
7. Once the whole list of items under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" is empty, go to the menu on the top and select Action -> Scan for Hardware Changes.
   
8. Your Microsoft Windows OS will automatically detect the USB port and will install its default drivers for them. Note: It might detect the USB2.0 controller too and install its driver for it but the MS driver does not work. If it does it automatically, uninstall it as in Step 6.
   
9. So now all your ports are USB compliant. Plug in your mouse and see that it works fine.
   
10. Plug in you USB mass storage hard disk. It will recognize it but will report a faster USB2.0 device inserted to a slower USB1.0 port. Hurrah !! - we have got out USB mass storage hard disk working although at slower speeds.
    
11. Now we need to enable the USB2.0 controller. To do you need to get your original chipset driver cd. If you have it, good or browse to your laptop's vendor page and loop for chipset driver for your laptop.
    
12. Install your chipset drivers again. The USB 2.0 drivers are part of chipset drivers collection.
    
13. Post this, check in device manager. The USB2 Enhanced controller will be recognized. If you do a Right Click + Properties to it and go to the Driver tab on top, you will see the driver details (and it will be a non-Microsoft driver).
    
14. Plug you USB mass storage hard disk again and it should work fine this time:)

P.S: More details on USB can be found at wikipedia.