Internet Explorer 8 Error Right After Update in Windows XP

IE 8 is cool indeed. Some has speculated on it's speed as the fastest of all web browsers in the universe. You can check this out: http://tonyseno.blogspot.com/ , however the article contradicts with http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/tested-google-chrome-vs-ie8-vs-firefox-3-1-462848 and this http://www.cnet.com.au/browser-battle-ie-8-vs-opera-9-5-vs-safari-vs-firefox-3_p4-339287694.htm and some others, including my own testing. But indeed Teno's article went along with this article http://www.pcworld.com/article/161616/browser_showdown_ie_8_vs_firefox.html .
I guess it is hard to pinpoint which one is the best with so many variables and not just the objective ones but also in a matter of taste and behaviour.

Most of all, I think, it is the fact that 90% of computer users are using any version of Microsoft Windows, which has Internet Explorer in it. That's why IE8 is such an important issue to discuss. Check the statistic at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp. And with all what Microsoft Windows can do, it all becomes a blessing... or a curse.

Some people are having issues with IE8 right after updating their PC thru Windows update. To be precise it is the installation of Software Distribution Service 3.0 that is bundled with the updates is the trouble maker. The funny thing is, Software Distribution Service 3.0 is not listed in the update. It is like the old pain in the *ss Windows Genuine Advantage.

The issues are listed :

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsupdate&tid=47ec8d20-a50b-4652-ac96-e13136fb22a3&cat=en_US_2231886c-4c59-45b0-92e0-8881ddf5f40b&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1
and also http://forums.techarena.in/windows-update/856021.htm
and also http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160450

Yes, google it and you will find troubles every where. But no solutions.

Here's the anatomy of the problem:
- a windows update came in, so it was then installed. No matter you installed it or by an automatic windows update.
- Internet Explorer 8 error. Just could not connect. It just froze once you put any address in the URL and hit enter.
- In the Event Viewer > Application you would have an Event ID 1000 error, saying "Faulting application iexplore.exe, version 8.0.6001.18702, faulting module entapi.dll, version 8.0.0.240, fault address 0x0000368a."
- Then you were so pissed-off so you switch to FireFox or Opera or Safari no matter nice and cool IE8 is with the great things so called "web slices" or "accelerator" in IE8. Now before you do that, I'll shed a light for you to overcome this.

Get a shower, have breakfast (after thru the horrible night trying to fix it) and take the pill. Here's the solution.

What I did to work around this was:
1. once you had the problem, check on your system restore.
2. there's a check point called Software Distribution Service 3.0, restore to that point.
3. after restored check the update you have taked that caused the headache.
4. in the High Priority list, uncheck (untick) whatever listed there, and check/tick "don't show this update again".
5. select/tick the other options in as "software, optional" and "hardware, optional", it doesn't matter.
6. you can update.

Basically, windows will intall Software Distribution Service 3.0 when installing one or some of the high priority updates. My guess is, it prohibits anything "illegal" or "considered illegal" software installed in the OS. And how microsoft judges the installed software as legal or illegal is not always accurate. The software that is incorrectly judged as illegal is mostly Microsoft Office 2007. Check my previous article http://burningzeppelin.blogspot.com/2008/12/move-ahead-to-vista-office-2007-or-even.html, this was year 2008.

I am now investigating Microsoft Office 2007. I need to now the best times and worst times we're gonna get with Ms Office 2007 before I really use it company wide. You know what, some day Vista or Win 7, Office 2007 and IE8 will be the standard tools in most offices. May be most companies are gonna use them, although less but still majority( http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp ) . Some will switch to Linux and Apple, why? Because if you use Windows OS but still have problems with it's application (browsers or word processor) then what good is that to have a great OS without the ability to get the job done?

Solution for ActiveSync Issues with SupportID 8600050D and EventID 3005.

I just could not believe it, how activesync issues with SupportID 8600050D and EventID 3005 have put very bad psyco impact on IT confidence. To find the cause of this error message:

"there has been a change on your server that requires you to re-synchronize all
items on your device. all changes made since your last successful sync will be
lost do you wish to continue?"

was a real pain in the a*s. The problem is vast and pervasive. Google it up, you will find these isssues all over the world. I wrote the anatomy of the issue in detail at ActiveSync error, now are you ready to get very miserable? . You know what, it took me 6 months to figure out the solution.

These are basically what to do to resolve it, not in detail. Back up your server including the mailboxes bofore doing this:

1. Backup all your users' mailboxes. Convert it to PST files so they still be able to access their previous emails locally. Also keep the backup in your server. I know this is tough and will harvest complain. But you've gotta do what you've gotta do, that's a professional call.
2. Istall the PST files to your users Outlook, test them all before kissing the OST files good bye. Make sure the OST files are gone. You must be aware that using Exmerge to fetch PST out of Exchange has problems with files more then 2Gigs. So google up to mock around this issue. I am not gonna detail it for you.
3. Make sure your Exchange Back-End server is routable. It means you are gonna use Public IP for this. Make sure your firewall configured real well for God's sake. Yes, for God's sake, because if anything happened (like an intruder formatting your drive) to your Exchange Back End server and you don't care for God's sake then He might not care for your sake. And believe me only He can help you with that.
   To make your Back-End server routable, you might need the help from your Internet Access Provider. That depends on your topology, but mostly you will need their help.
4. Make sure your DNS is correct. Make sure you have complete MX and PTR records.
   
5. Recreate the CA Certificate at your Font-End server. This step is mandatory, it is very important to have new certificate. Make sure you inform the whole people on remote are to reinstall the certificate in their machines later on, otherwise RPC-over-HTTP connetion between outlook and exchange won't run.
6. Restart Front-End and Back-End Exchange server.

That's it, mate. Your PushMail through ActiveSync is now working. Yes we need more than 2 days to fix that. As you know the steps above are not in details, I am sure you can break them in details yourself.

- Zep

Mail Issues, Clients Perspective!

I wonder why there's so few articles discussing email issues as in clients perspective. Usually what we discuss is about servers and protocols. You know what, I believe the most valuable thing and also the center of any kind of messaging system is the users, the people. Users are the ones that should take benefits of the system or otherwise the real victims would be the users. So, we should take it bottom-up from users to servers, shouldn't we?

My office uses Ms Outlook mostly/officially as mail clients. And as we all usually do, the email clients are treated as dashboard. We keep it open all the time, from the moment we take a seat until we leave office, Ms Outlook is sitting there. The pop up notification as emails came in is just nice.

Yes, that's why I use Ms Outlook in the center of my universe. Why not using it as the spot where all things happen, like putting gmail account in it, also hotmail. Yes hotmail's Outlook Connector is a nice little thing that makes our universe centered in our desktop, the Ms Outlook to be precise. O, yea, put in also your email accounts from your side job. Use Pop3 or IMAP4 connection, isn't that fine or what? Now you are ready to go.

But then you begin to feel it. The slowliness. Ms outlook or any kind of email client is supposed to be multithreaded, but in this case still you need to queue what you are doing. That's why you still see the mail in the outbox is still hanging in there, not knowing when it will get out from your outbox and really sent. In cases like this, I usually recommend my users to:

1. "Cancel server request" by right clicking the outlook icon in the system tray.

2. Click in the "send and receive" button.

3. Those two steps sometime solve the problem (the outgoing emails are gone and move to sent folder), but it is quite often it doesn't. If it doesn't solve it then..

4. Quit outlook (it will prompt you to click ok although there are emails in the outgoing folder) and then open outlook again. You need to wait a few seconds before starting MsOutlook again to give time for the previous Outlook process to stop.

It's very annoying when you are in the middle of something big and something intercepts only because some silly email is hanging in the outbox folder and don't want to leave from there. I dont have much data yet, but I am damn sure that's because queueing problems, usually happen with users that have many mail accounts. Let's dig deeper...

The issues might arise from:

1. Simply too many accounts, as a generic issue in email client. Frankly I doubt this theory, because it happens with outlook with only two accounts too. One exchange account and another is IMAP4 account.

2. Incompatibility between Mail Server and client. This could be it, non exchange accounts are usually hosted in Linux servers. However, this shouldn't be the cause since operating system should not have anything to do with the mail server's job, they should be independent. The mail system should only concerns with protocols, credentials, and DNS.

3. Ms Outlook has handicaps to handle IMAP4 or other than MAPI and RPC over HTTP. I have a stong feeling about this as the cause. Can anybody provide evidence to approve or disapprove it? I will really appreciate it.

4. Queueing or multithread problems with Ms Outlook to handle too many email accounts. Again, any evidence to prove or disapprove it would be very appreciated.

That's all folk. I am setting up a small lab consist of two exchange servers (front and back server topology), a linux server for an IMAP4 email server, and two desktop for email clients. I will back to you to report the findings.