TIP: How I got Acronis True Image 2011 to install (a workaround)

I’ve been using Acronis True Image for backing up drives on my Windows desktop system for a number of years. For me, it seems to work more consistently and reliably than other tools I’ve used in the past, such as Norton Ghost.

These backups have saved me on more than one occasion. I really like the way that True Image works.

SO when I found that Acronis True Image Home 2011 had been released, and what's more is available at a big discount and with a free copy of the Plus Pack add-on till 3oth November 2010, I immediately purchased a copy online.

I expected the installation to go flawlessly, as had all my previous installations of True Image, but this didn’t happen at all.

When I launched the installer executable, nothing seemed to happen, no error messages, nothing at all. On closer investigation, I noticed (using Windows Task Manager) that the installer would always terminate in a second or less.

So I jumped on to the Acronis support site, and tried to start up a chat session with a member of the support team. First disappointment was that theis support function was  available only during USA working hours – a BAD POLICY, Acronis, you should realize that you need to support your customers in all time zones and have offer chat feature 24/7 (that’s the reality of the Web, surely you know this).

Anyway, I waited up until after midnight and started up a chat. Without going into boring detail, the support session finally finished up at 3 AM Melbourne time with the support team member claiming that my Windows installer needed fixing/updating (I use 64-bit Windows 7), and asking me to download and run the Windows Installer 3.1 Redistributable (v2) but whn I tried this it “spat the dummy” and didn’t work anyway. I noticed on that page that a newer version (Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable) was available.

However… being a suspicious type, I strongly suspected that I’d been given a “bum steer” about this supposed Windows installer Redistributable problem, so decided to do some alternative research before messing with Windows redistributables.

I did a Google search and found nobody reporting the same prpblem. A few people had mentioned (with this and earlier version of the True Image installer) that they got some error messages before the installer failed. However, as mentioned above, I didn’t even get a single error message.

In one of those eureka moments, I decided to peek inside the True Image installer executable, guessing that perhaps it was a self-extractor (zipped package) rather than a monolithic executable. And this is where my lucj changed, as per the following image:

Highlighted in yellow (1) is the True Image installer, and following the red arrow (2) inside 7-zip you’ll see that indeed there was and MSI Windows installer.

With fingers crossed for good luck, I selected the Open option (3) from the right-click context menu -- and much to my relief the installation commenced. After this, everything worked as painlessly as with earlier versions of True Image.

I hope this helps others of you out there. And Acronis, you need to examine this and fix up whatever problem there is with the monolithic installer package for True Image Home 2011  (the exe file).

Technorati Tags: Acronis True Image 2011,Installer,Tips,Workarounds

Earth Alerts ... Sometimes mother nature gets a little upset!

I just came across the Earth Alerts web site today, and found it fascinating.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, thunderstorms, floods, wildfires, landslides...

...these are the kinds of things our planet dishes out, which arouses human curiosity, fascination and fear.

I had never stumbled upon it before, despite a long-term interest in all things scientific and a web page dedicated in particular to oceanography, surfing, waves, tsunamis, earthquakes and the like -- to which page I have now added a link to Earth Alerts.

It comes in two flavors. Earth Alerts Version 2010 is a freeware Windows-based desktop program.

If you don’t want to install the above desktop application, then point your web nrowser at the online Google Maps version, which gives eye-opening results like the following:

 

Blimey, this is for a quiet day. Indonesia is suffering from continuing earthquakes and two volcanoes – one of the volcanoes being Anak Krakatau as if that hasn’t caused enormous devastation in the late 19th century (40,000 or more deaths).

There are volcanic eruptions and tremors all over the globe (but for some reason Iceland isn’t showing any activity at this moment, despite the enormous air traffic disruption that it caused earlier this year).

I’m really happy to be located in Melbourne, at the south-east corner of the Australian mainland (where the white hand-shaped icon appears). Australia is geologically a very stable continent, with few earthquakes strong enough to cause injury or damage.

I feel really safe here, except that maybe a Qantas jet engine might fall on me, just as one did on poor Donnie Darko …

TubeHome.com Video from everywhere!

Technorati Tags: Earth Alerts,Google Maps,Earthquake,Volcano,Tsunami,Qantas,Jet Engine Failure

How to uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1

I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for a number of years, and just last week got my hands on the latest incarnation, Version 11.

I decided to uninstall version 10.1 and start afresh, retraining the voice recognition learning engine to make allowance for a different headset and to take advantage of any new features.

But when I tried to uninstall version 1.1 it kept asking for an installation disk “1” that I knew didn’t exist anywhere on the planet, with the inevitable result:



Nothing that I tried, including a bit of fiddling with the Windows registry, enabled the product to be uninstalled.

So I did a little web searching, and on Nuance’s support site came across the answer, see How to completely uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10

Just in case that page disappears from the Nuance web site at some stage, I used the second method successfully, which is as follows:

Uninstall with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 "Remover Tool"
If uninstalling Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 from "Add or Remove Programs" and from the Product DVD fails, use the Remover Tool to completely uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10:
Note: Using the option below will not deactivate Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 or allow an additional installation to be activated.

1. Click Here to download the Remover Tool.
2. Save the "Dragon10.1Remover.exe" file to the Windows Desktop.
3. Back up any user profiles (if any exist).
4. Double click on the "Dragon10.1Remover.exe" file.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Notes:

• The user must be logged into the machine with administrator rights before running this utility.
• When selecting a different location to re-install Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 after using the Remover Tool to uninstall it, the installation path reverts to the location of the original installation. To uninstall Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 and re-install to another install path, we recommend using the uninstall feature in "Add or Remove Programs".

And that’s all there was to it, thank goodness! I subsequently was able to install NaturallySpeaking Version 11 without any further problems.

Technorati Tags: Dragon NaturallySpeaking,Nuance Communications Inc,Version 10,Version 11,Installation,Uninstallation,Problem

Bridge stolen? Writing blog posts the “live” way.

Just managed to upgrade to Windows Live Writer 2011 after many attempts over the last few months.

I kept getting an obscure error message, typical of what happens when the multi-component Windows Live gets itself into a mess. As with other such “black box” software packages, it was impossible to determine what was going wrong under the covers. I was at my wits’ end and couldn’t find a solution anywhere, but suddenly yesterday something changed (a Windows Update, or a new version of the installer, perhaps) and it “fixed itself” more or less.

Widows Live Writer (WLW) is an excellent free desktop tool for creating and maintaining blog posts, and these days I wouldn’t want to do it any other way. I use WLW for all my blogs, which are on Google’s Blogger.com (but WLW also acts as a front end to WordPress, TypePad and more).

This is just a fill-in blog post, giving me a chance to play with the enhancements in this version of Live Writer, such as the ribbon.

Blogging couldn’t be made easier! I’ll simply drag an image from the file system into the work area … then use the ribbon to right-adjust the image, and hey presto, there it is over to my right!

A quick speel chack (see bottom image) and I’m ready to click the Publish button.

By the way, the road sign is in Ireland, I think. Did somebody steal the bridge, or take it away for repainting, or what? I hope that they mandate life vests under  car seats over there!

I used the very handy Inpaint, a quite valuable and inexpensive graphics tool, to remove some extraneous objects from the image.

Here’s a snapshot of Windows Live Writer 2011 in action on this blog post:

My conclusion? The ribbon takes a bit of getting used to, but after that it’s  “no sweat” as we say here Down Under. Windows Live Writer 2011 is definitely nicer to use than the previous version (which itself was already far better that using the browser-based editor provided by Blogger.com). Thanks, Microsoft.

NotesTracker Guide Version 5.2 now available from Scribd

Read all about NotesTracker Version 5.2 in the guide now also available from social publishing and reading site Scribd.

Get the guide (a PDF document) from http://www.scribd.com/doc/38450330/NotesTracker-Version-5-2-Guide

The Lotus Sandbox is available again, with bananas

Users of the decommissioned Lotus Sandbox need lament no more, it has been brought back to life and is available for downloads once again (no thanks to IBM).

I recently commented about its passing and yesterday there was a reply posted with the good news.

You’ll find that it has a new “banana home” courtesy of Peter von Stöckel and you can see the Sandbox again here.

Go read Peter’s blog posts about it at Notes.Net Sandbox and Notes.Net Sandbox, part 2

Technorati Tags: IBM,Lotus Sandbox

Big Blue’s Lotus sandbox blues? Give us back our biscuits!

Add to the list of unfathomable corporate decisions IBM’s recent making unavailable the much-loved Lotus Sandbox archive, see here, please go read it.

I do refer to the Sandbox several times per year but haven’t visited for a month or two, and was only alerted to this sad action by Thierry Cayla’s R.I.P posting and I agree with him that it’s not one of IBM’s smartest moves.

So I sent of the following via the developerWorks feedback link on the Sandbox page and maybe you’ll consider doing so too if you’d like to see the Sandbox archive revived.

Here’s my developerWorks feedback to IBM (why not have a go yourself?) …

Bring back the Lotus Sandbox. There were still valuable downloads on it that aren't available elsewhere (such as OpenNTF.org). Consequently  decommissioning the Sandbox will prove to be a disservice to the Lotus Notes/Domino community. Even if you don't actively maintain but merely leave it there as a "legacy" resource, it will remain of value to the Notes community. Could you not afford the trivial expense of leaving it there? Surely your budget is not so constrained that you can't afford the disk space and download bandwidth?
- - - - - - - - - - -

With the boilerplate response: Thank you for giving developerWorks your feedback. Your comments give developerWorks important information that we will use to further improve our design.

Time will tell if they do anything positive about this unimpressive decision.

This reminds me a bit of IBM Australia’s decision, back around  1989 or 1990 -- when admittedly the economy was getting a bit tough, and the usual aggressive annual sales growth targets were being missed -- to stop supplying free biscuits (cookies, if you prefer) in the IBM coffee rooms across the nation. Rumour had it that the biscuits were costing IBM Australia the not inconsiderable amount of some $150,000 per annum (or maybe it was $250,000), so it was probably an understandable decision for the times.

But I can’t see how merely keeping online the Lotus Sandbox could be imposing any such unbearable cost on IBM Corporation.

So IBM,  please reconsider, and make available again the “knowledge biscuits” stored in the Lotus Sandbox.

Technorati Tags: IBM,Lotus Sandbox,Bad decisions

Help me, concerning the Lotus Domino Designer 8.5.2 Help database

I remain puzzled about the Domino Designer 8.5.2 Help database, which only seems to mention the previous 8.5.1 point release. This is what I found when I opened it:

This is the file help85_designer.nsf that I opened from the Help folder.

Thinking that somehow I might have “stuffed up” the installation (even though I deliberately installed the new release into a brand new folder and not simply overwritten the folder that I had used for release 8.5.1), I contacted one of my clients and he reported the same.

Is this a faux pas on my part, or were there simply no new application design features in the Notes/Domino 8.5.2 release which the IBM information developers found worthy of writing about?

Am I going crazy? … The answer to that rhetorical question is undoubtedly a resounding “Yes!” … But maybe I’m not the only one?

Technorati Tags: IBM,Lotus Notes,Lotus Domino Designer 8.5.2,Help Documentation

Is there an offline version of The Lotus XPages Domino Object Maps (for v 8.5.2 and 8.5.1)?

The online interactive Domino Object Maps for versions 8.5.1 and 8.5.2 are very useful Help resources for the for Lotus Notes/Domino developer.

In case you missed it, they’re accessible here:

• XPages Domino Object Map 8.5.2
• XPages Domino Object Map 8.5.1

I wanted to make a offline copy, mainly to get snapper performance, by downloading each of the above-referenced pages and all their sub-pages. But this didn’t work, with many of the sub-URLs pointing to other pages external to the base URLs.

Can anybody provide a method for making/obtaining a working offline copy of each map structure in its entirety?

Technorati Tags: IBM,Lotus Notes,Lotus Domino,XPages,Object Map

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Installing Lotus Notes 8.5.2 on Windows 7 – a cautionary tale

I wonder what Pseudolus would have thought if he had encountered this “gotcha” while installing Lotus Notes 8.5.2 (assuming that they had PCs in ancient Rome, of course).

If you’re not sure who Pseudolus is, go take a look into A funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and have a giggle or two, because you shouldn’t take life seriously all the time. There are some video snippets listed on this Google search results page, here’s one of them:



Anyway, let me now amuse and divert you. Here’s something for everybody, comedy tonight! …
Last weekend I eagerly downloaded IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.2, uninstalled version 8.5.1 and proceeded to install the new version of each.

The Lotus Domino 8.5.2 server installed like a dream, in the usual 5 minutes or so that it takes – it certainly is painlessly easy, a dream ride (especially compared with installing many other server products).

Then I moved on to installing Lotus Notes Client, Designer, Administrator desktop product. I expected this to take a little longer, perhaps ten minutes or so (including the Lotus Symphony productivity suite). I had no problems with any of the beta versions of 8.5.2 and expected no issues with the gold code version. But this is where I suspect Pseudolus or one of his zany associates must have decided to add a bit of spice to my weekend!

The normal initial dialog box showed up, namely:


As an aside, this is one of the very few installer panels out there which clearly and explicitly explains what it’s going to do with the extracted files. There are some installers which do not make it clear whether they’re merely going to extract the files into a program directory from which they are executable without any further ado, or whether the extracted files will be used to install the software (and also what will happen to the extracted files once the installation is over, for example automatically cleaning up by deleting these files). So congratulations to IBM for coming up with a perfect example of how this installer dialog box should be worded. Other developers of installer dialogs should take note.

As you can see, I decided that I wanted to keep the installer files and replaced the default generic name with a meaningful name (LotusNotesDesignerAdmin852) for the folder where I could finf then for subsequent installations. Note that my Windows temporary directory is on the F: drive and this drive has about 50 GB of free space, far more than the Notes installation should require, so I expected no dramas to ensue.

But guess what? I was wrong! A few seconds later I got this:


At this stage, clicking the OK button caused the installer to exit.

Now, I simply couldn’t understand why the installer wanted to use the C: drive when I had told it to extract the files to the F: drive, but took a look at the C: drive nevertheless. It’s a logical drive (on a far bigger physical drive) which currently has more than 23 GB free of its total 80 GB size.

So why on earth did the installer claim “There is not enough space on drive C:\ to extract this package” since the extracted package is much smaller than this?

Still very puzzled, and in no mood to spend more time that Saturday trying work out why this contradictory fatal error had occurred, I went to my secondary Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) system and extracted the package there. As I had hoped and expected, this time the very same extraction phase proceed to completion, so I copied the extracted files over the network and was able to install the Lotus Notes 8.5.2 clients (with Lotus Symphony) in the expected ten minutes or so without further drama, and get on with some development/testing work. I’m still not sure why it worked on the secondary Windows 7 system but not the primary one (a subtle difference in Windows security configuration has crept in, or some such thing, I suppose).

Later on, I examined the C: drive’s contents for any possible cause for the wayward drive space claim. While this has nothing to do with Lotus Notes, I discovered to my chagrin that there’s a folder C:\Windows\winsxs that holds more than 30 GB of executables. I kid you not. Talk about Windows systems becoming  bloated!

It turns out that this folder, introduced with Windows XP, is the container for the “side-by-side” assemblies used to ameliorate the “DLL hell” issue for which Windows is infamous. Read more at Wikipedia or here. And mine holds over 20 GB in total contents. ... Crikey, fair crack of the whip, and stone the flaming crows (to coin three Australian sayings).

But this still didn’t explain why the “not enough space on drive C:\” error message was raised, and I remained puzzled. Until this morning, that is, when it suddenly hit me that this is one of those misleading messages, the wording being a “red herring” that causes you to waste time looking for causation in the wrong places.

It wasn’t an “out of space” error, but an authorization problem. It’s one of those situations, all too common with Windows 7 (and I suspect Windows Vista too, but I skipped over this Windows release so have no direct experience).

[UPDATE]:
I find that Windows 7 can be extremely fussy about what you can do with folders and files on the C: drive, and any software you develop should be careful about what you expect your users to do with the C: drive (actually, with the Windows “system drive” which might not always be the C: drive). Always carefully check that you application will work properly (without failing due to authorization issues) if it touches a Windows 7 system drive!

The solution to quite a few Windows 7 errors is to execute a program using the “Run as administrator” capability, like this:



If you encounter the same error, this is all you have to do to get back on track. I hope this tip saves you some heartburn -- and that you enjoyed a look at “A funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” too.

Technorati Tags: Lotus Notes installer,Error message,Not enough space,Windows 7,Run as administrator,Solution,Tip