Outlook Start with Windows

Launching Outlook at startup (in a smarter way)

I know many people start Outlook as the first application directly after they start their computer and close it as the last one when they shutdown.

You might already know that you can automatically start any application at startup by placing a shortcut to this application in the Startup folder in the Start Menu. This is a great way to save you a click and/or to ensure that you do not forget to start Outlook.

However, the problem with this method is that you are putting quite a bit of stress on your computer directly when you login and starting up your computer might actually take a lot longer as a result. Especially if you are also starting some other applications directly at logon, you could render your computer unresponsive for quite some time.

Want to know a smarter way?

The “smarter way” is to use a delayed Scheduled Task instead. This will require you to have Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 since the delay option got first introduced in Windows Vista.

After creating the task to start Outlook, you must modify it to run with a normal priority or otherwise it will get started with a background priority instead.

More responsive and quicker boot

By adding a delay of somewhere between 30 seconds or a couple of minutes, your computer will have time to complete the startup and log you on properly first.

This will make the logon process much quicker and leave the computer more responsive. This also means that when you started the computer not to check your mail, but to check something on the Internet, you don’t have to wait until your computer comes back to life again and have the opportunity to launch your browser in between.

Step 1: Creating a Delayed Scheduled Task

To start Outlook at logon via a delayed Scheduled Task use the following steps below;
(This may look like a lot of steps, but you’ll be done in less than 5 minutes.)

1. Open the Control Panel from the Start Menu.
2. In the Search box at the top right in Control Panel type;
   schedule tasks
3. Open the Schedule Tasks applet from the search results.
4. In the pane on the left choose: Task Scheduler Library. 
5. From the Action pane on the right side of the Task Scheduler window click;
   Create Task…
6. On the General tab fill in the following fields;
   • Name: Start Outlook at logon
   • Description: Starting Outlook via a delayed start
7. Select the Triggers tab and press New….
8. From the New Trigger dialog that pops-up set the following options;
   • Begin the task: At log on
   • Specific user: automatically selects your user account
   • Delay task for: 2 minutes
     See Note 1 for more info.
   • Enabled: selected
9. Press OK to close the New Trigger dialog.
10. Select the Actions tab and press New…
11. Use the Browse… button to browse to OUTLOOK.EXE
    Depending on your version of Outlook and Windows, you can find it in one of the following locations;
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office##
    • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office ##\root\Office##
    • C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office##
12. In the “Add arguments (optional)” field type;
    /recycle
    See Note 2 for more info.
13. Press OK to close the New Action dialog.
14. Select the Settings tab.
15. Disable the option: Stop the task if it runs longer than 3 days”
    This will prevent Outlook from being closed if you leave your computer running for longer than 3 days.
16. Press OK to finish creating the task.

Note 1: If your computer starts up faster, you can set this to 1 minute. If it is slower, you can set it to 3 or 5 minutes. You can type in any value you want; you’re not limited to the predefined times.

Note 2: If you have multiple mail profiles configured in Outlook, you can directly open Outlook with a specific profile by using the /profile <profilename> switch.

Step 2: Setting the task priority

Unfortunately, a major downside of this method is that tasks are started with a lower priority. This means that Outlook will run slower. To counter this, you can set the priority of the task but unfortunately this can’t be simply set as an option.

1. Export your created task by right clicking on it and choosing: Export…
2. Save the task to a convenient location like the Desktop.
3. Open the saved xml-file in Notepad. A quick way to do this is by opening Notepad and then drag and drop the file into it.
4. Somewhere near the bottom, you’ll find the following line:
   <priority>7</priority>
   Change the priority to 4, 5 or 6 so that the line reads:
   <priority>5</priority>
   Note: Priority level 4, 5 and 6 are currently all defined the same.
5. Close Notepad and save the file when being prompted.
6. In Task Scheduler, delete the tasks you created by right clicking on it and choosing: Delete
7. In Task Scheduler, from Action pane on the right click on: Import Task….
8. Browse to the xml-file you saved and click on “Open” to import it.
9. Click OK to confirm the task creation.

Deleting the task

If you ever want to delete the task again, you can do so by opening Task Scheduler again. On the left side, select the Task Scheduler Library and you’ll find the task back in the center pane at the top. Right click the task and choose “Delete”.

Using a delayed scheduled task will keep your computer more responsive at startup.
(Click the image to enlarge)

Tixati - Launch at Windows start-up

To automatically launch Tixati at Windows startup:

• Click on Settings > Shell Integration
• Next to "Auto-Start Tixati With Computer" select "Showing Normally"

• Click on the Close button.
• Note that you can set an Auto-Start Delay.

Credit to:https://ccm.net

Enable Standard Users to Run a Program with Admin Rights without the Password

Let Standard Users Run Programs as Admin

To let standard users run a program with administrator rights, we are going to use the built-in Runas command. To start, you need to know two things before you can do anything. The first one is the  computer name, and the second one is the username of your administrator account.

If you don’t know the  computer name, press “Win + X,” and then select the “System” option. If you are using Windows 7, you can search for it in the Start menu.

The above action will open the System window. Here you will find your computer name listed.

You can find your administrator username in the User Accounts window.

Once you have the details, you can create the shortcut. To do that, right-click on your desktop and then select the “New” option and then “Create Shortcut.”

The above action will open the “Create Shortcut” window. Click on the “Browse” button, and select the application you want users to  run with admin rights.

In my case I’m selecting a simple application called Speccy. Though this app only shows the system information and temperatures, it requires admin privileges to work.

After selecting the application, this is how the Create Shortcut window looks.

Enter the following command at the beginning of the file path. Don’t forget to replace ComputerName and Username with the actual details.

runas /user:ComputerName\Username /savecred

The completed command looks something like this.

runas /user:ComputerName\Username /savecred "C:\path\to\file.exe"

Once you are done, click on the “Next” button to continue.

Enter the name of the shortcut and click on the “Finish” button.

That’s it. You’ve created a custom shortcut for your program. By default, the shortcut you’ve created will have no proper icon.

However, you can change the icon by clicking on the “Change Icon” button  from the Properties window. You can access the Properties window by right-clicking on the shortcut and then selecting the option “Properties.”

Once you are done changing the icon, double-click on it. For the first time, you need to enter the administrator password. So, enter the admin password and press the Enter button.

After the first time, whenever a user launches the application using the shortcut you just created, it will be launched with admin rights. The savecred option in the above command will save the admin password so that users can run the application as an admin without actually entering the password.

In fact, if you open the Windows Credentials Manager and navigate to “Windows Credentials,” you will see the saved password.

If you ever want to restrict the user from running the target app as an administrator, simply delete the shortcut or remove the saved credential from the Windows Credential Manager.

Do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using the above method to let standard users run an application with admin rights.

"This Connection is Not Secure” in Mozilla Firefox after Kaspersky Installed

This untrusted connection issue might appear if you are using a 64-bit version of Mozilla Firefox along with Kaspersky security suite. Since Firefox 64-bit version is very new, there is no support for it yet in Kaspersky program. That's why it might show that error message when you try to open HTTPS websites in Firefox 64-bit version.

If you are also using Mozilla Firefox 64-bit version and Kaspersky antivirus or Internet security suite in your computer, you might also face this problem. If you face this problem, you can try following solutions:

SOLUTION 1:

Since 64-bit version of Firefox is not yet supported by Kaspersky, you can try to uninstall Firefox 64-bit and then install the regular 32-bit version of Firefox and your problem will be solved.

SOLUTION 2:

If you want to keep using 64-bit version of Firefox, then you'll need to manually install Kaspersky antivirus root certificate in Firefox to fix this issue.

Follow these simple steps:

1. Open Firefox Preferences window and go to Advanced section. Now click on Certificatestab.

2. Under Certificates tab, click on "View Certificates" button.

3. It'll open Firefox Certificate Manager window. In Authorities tab, click on Import button.

 

t'll open a browse window to select the file containing CA certificate to import.

4. Now copy following path and paste it in the addressbar or file name text box of the browse window:

C:\ProgramData\Kaspersky Lab\AVP16.0.0\Data\Cert

5. Now press Enter key and the browse window will open Cert folder. Now select "(fake)Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Root Certificate.cer" file and click on Open button.

 6. Firefox will show a confirmation window, enable all 3 checkboxes present in the window such as Trust this CA to identify websites, email users and software developers.

Now click on OK button to apply changes.

That's it. Now try to open Google and other HTTPS websites and Firefox will open them fine without any problem.

Google Drive Traceback Error

Easy Steps to solve it...

Step 1: Open Command Prompt in Elevated Mode

Step 2 : Type MKLINK /D "%TEMP%\Temp" "%TEMP%"  

Step 3 : Press Enter.

Step 4 : Exit Command Prompt.

Step 5 : Restart Computer.--- Problem Solved.

Notepad Starts-When You Start Your Computer

SYMPTOMS

When you start the computer, Notepad starts and one or more text documents that contain the following lines appears on the Windows desktop:

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21787

Method 1: Delete the Desktop.ini File

1. Open Run ( Short Key Window Key + R)
2. Type shell:startup
   
3. Locate the file named desktop.ini -Delete it and close the window.
4. Again open Run (Short Key Window Key + R)
5. Type shell:common startup
   
6. Locate the same named file desktop.ini - Delete it and close the window.
   
7. Restart the computer.

Method 1: Delete the Desktop.ini File

1. Start Windows Explorer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
3. In the Advanced settings box, click to clear the Hide extensions for known file types check box and the Hide protected operating system files check box (if they are not already cleared), and then click OK.
4. Delete any occurrences of the Desktop.ini file that contains the lines described earlier in the "Symptoms" section of this article. To do so:
   1. Locate each of the following folders, right-click the Desktop.ini file (if the file exists in that folder), and then click Open:
      • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
      • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
      • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu
      where drive is the drive on which Windows is installed.
   2. Verify that the file contains the following lines:

      [.ShellClassInfo]
      LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21787

      If the file contains these lines, right-click the file, click Delete, and then click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the deletion.
5. Restart your computer and verify that the issue is resolved.

Method 2: Use the System Configuration Utility (Msconfig.exe) to Disable the Startup Item

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type msconfig, and then click OK.
3. Click the Startup tab.
4. Click to clear the check box beside any desktop entries in the Startup Item column that are listed as Common Startup in the Location column, and are also located in any of the following locations (as indicated in the Command column):
   • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
   • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
   • drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu
5. Click OK to quit the System Configuration Utility.
6. Restart your computer and verify that the issue is resolved.

How to Join PC to Your Active Directory Domain

We have shown you how to install Active Directory on your network, but it’s pointless to have a Domain Controller unless you add your machines to the Domain, so today we’re going to cover how to do that.
Note: this is part of our ongoing series teaching IT administration basics, and might not apply to everybody.
Adding a Computer to an Active Directory Domain is not hard by any means, but there are 3 things you should always remember:

• Rename the machine to a user friendly, recognizable name before adding it to the Domain.
• Make sure your DNS settings are pointing to the correct DNS Server for the domain.
• You have to have access to a Domain account that is part of the Domain Admins security group.

Joining a Machine To a Domain

Open Computer and click on the System Properties button.

Now click on the Advanced system settings link on the left hand side.

When the advanced system settings open, switch to the computer name tab.

Click on the change button, from here you can change your Computers Name to a more friendly name.


Now switch the radio button, in the bottom section, from Workgroup to Domain. This will make the text box become available.

Now type in the name of your domain, ours is howtogeek.local, but yours will be whatever you made it when you set up Active Directory.

When you hit enter, or click ok, you will be asked for the user name and password of a Domain Admin user account.

If you specify the correct credentials you will be welcomed to the Domain.

 

Information Grabbed from www.howtogeek.com (Thank you)