A student’s Toshiba Satellite laptop equipped with Windows 8 and Secure Boot refused to shut down by simply pressing the power button. The solution is to hold down the Fn button prior to holding down the power button. Keep both buttons depressed until you hear the laptop actually shutting down. Boy, do I love Secure […]

Read More → Toshiba Satellite laptop, Windows 8, and Secure Boot – what a combination!

Sometimes the default location of the Client-side Caching database is just plain unsuitable. Client-side Caching, or CSC, is used for storing offline files, local copies of files normally stored on Windows shares, stored on Windows servers. (The Norwegian term is «frakoblede filer».) The default location for the CSC database is C:\Windows\CSC. If you like to […]

Read More → Relocating the Client-side Caching database in Windows 7 and 8

Ever tried activating Microsoft Windows 8 Professional using only GUI tools when installed from a volume license DVD? Right, you can’t, for three reasons:

Read More → Activating Microsoft Windows 8 Professional when installed from a volume license DVD

A collegue’s desktop computer has twice lost touch with its DVD drive. The drive is OK, it’s recognized by the BIOS, it even booted from a FreeBSD DVD when told to do so. Yet Windows 7 refused to display the drive. The Device Manager utility complained about a missing driver service and something about a […]

Read More → CD/DVD drives in Windows 7 and code 39 error

Have you just installed PTC’s Mathcad 14 on 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Professional only to receive the strange and not so informative error message “Unable to create 12.0 engine factory” when trying to run the software?

Read More → Error message when attempting to run PTC’s Mathcad 14 on 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Professional