Equation Editor - Server not available

This occurred when the reg key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Equations

was deleted by one of our RIPs. We exported the key from a known good machine, imported on the broken machine and that fixed the issue.

Unused device drivers in windows XP

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-6017628.html?tag=nl.e102

There was a lot of discussion about this and the general consensus is that these so called un-used drivers are not loaded into memory or use any system resources unless the device is connected.

However the ability to force these devices to display may be helpful in working with USB drivers for multiple devices.

From TechRepublic:

"When you install a device driver on a Windows XP machine, the operating system loads that driver each time the computer boots regardless of whether the device is present—unless you specifically uninstall the driver. This means that drivers from devices that you have long since removed from your system may be wasting valuable system resources.

Follow these steps to view and remove these unnecessary device drivers:

1. Press [Windows]+[Break] to bring up the System Properties dialog box.
2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
3. Click the New button below the System Variables panel.
4. In the New System Variable dialog box, type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name text box and 1 in the Variable Value text box.
5. Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then click OK again.
6. Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.
7. In Device Manager, go to View Show Hidden Devices.
8. Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.
9. To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select Uninstall."

The flash and shockwave version test page

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/

Sun Java Runtime / plugin test link

http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp
this link will test the java plugin and tell you the version info.

How to specify OU in SYSPREP

This article specifies how to set the OU in SYSPREP for Win 2000.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/226315/en-us

How to disable built-in zipped folders on XP

Here's a post to disable the built in unzip utility on XP, in case it conflicts with an installed program for .zip files.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6349_11-5406791.html?tag=sc&tag=nl.e064

PowerShell Scripting Tool

I've read a lot about Power Shell, a new (Free) scripting tool from Microsoft:

Here's a blog on MSDN about it:
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/

And here are the links to download it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926139

Here's the download documentation:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B4720B00-9A66-430F-BD56-EC48BFCA154F&displaylang=en