Windows Live Writer and Blogger returned the following error: Notfound: not found

Ah Windows Live Writer--you've been there all along and now you're not working because Google ended support for ClientLogin OAuth 1 (3LO), AuthSub, and OpenID2. Great for Google, no doubt, not so great for the thousands of users still clinging to WLW.

Microsoft insiders (Scott Hanselman) are talking about open sourcing Windows Live Writer, which would be great as the application hasn't seen any major updates since the 2012 product release. Hanselman has also suggested a fix may be a while off--in the hands of the open source community. 

Apparently Google is also considering a fix at their end, which would be great to keep us bloggers running in the meantime: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RickDoyle/posts/GUPJcu5sZHo

Update: a few workarounds have popped up around the web:

1. View source in WLW and copy/paste into Blogger (web). See http://mybeerbuzz.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/blogger-windows-live-writer-blogger.html
2. Configure posting by email. See http://www.hackinguniversity.in/2015/05/live-writer-not-found-error.html

Update 2 (3 June 2015): seems to be working again as expected :-)

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Convert old .mdi files

I finally decided to bite the bullet and have a go at converting all of my old .mdi files ("printed" when the Microsoft Office suite included the .mdi virtual printer, before it was deprecated). Microsoft kindly supplies a command line utility to help out called MDI to TIFF Converter, which--as the name suggests--converts .mdi files to .tif files.

The tool only has a command line interface but the arguments it accepts are simple. The tool will also recurse through a directory hierarchy.

I did have trouble with one document and the tool just bombed while running but it was simply enough to track down the offending file and start afresh after deleting it (deletion was appropriate in my case).

You can download MDI to TIFF Converter here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=30328

How to recover permanently deleted files in Outlook

I receive hundreds of emails a day from various systems and the occasional email from humans; in both cases, most of that email gets deleted straight away. Because my Deleted Items folder clogs up quickly as a result of this barrage, I've become a chronic shift-delete kind of guy over time—in other words, get rid of it, I don't want to ever see it again, goodbye. This generally works quite well for me and I've never had the need to recover something I've permanently deleted. Until today.

Despite it's fancy new ribbon, Outlook 2010 still allows me to delete all email below the Today group (and other groups)—a complete useability flaw, if you ask me but I'm not a Microsoft genius and I suppose the more barbaric users out there may actually use this "feature".

So I accidentally did just that today—my machine was bogged down running a SQL query: my fat fingers accidently moved the highlight to the Date: Today heading at about 2:30pm, I hit the shift-delete combo, said No I don't want to permanently delete when prompted (having realised what I'd done), and everything that I had yet to file from my Inbox and actually wanted to keep got deleted anyway.

Sigh. The IT guys proposed some registry hacks that didn't seem to apply to 2010 until someone finally found the almighty Recover Deleted Items button on the Folder menu:

Clicking this button brings up a list of email messages it can recover from somewhere (Exchange? I don't know and don't care) with details about date, sender, subject, etc. You can recover all files or individual files. 

TFS 2010 Install and Western Australia Timezone Error (tf255356)

The TFS 2010 install is reportedly a walk in the park by comparison with previous versions so I thought it would be fun to give it a spin as we prepare to move from TFS 2008 to the latest and greatest.

First of all, if you’re doing a test install (or any kind of install, for that matter), the TFSInstall.chm guide included in the root of the installation media has a very well-documented process for installing both SQL Server 2008 and TFS. Unlike previous guides I’ve attempted to wade through, this one is actually quite a light read and presents just the information required to get up and running.

Apart from installing Windows Server 2008 R2 with Analysis Services and Reporting Services, I also installed SQL Server 2008 and SP1 before dropping into the TFS installer; the installer will add .NET 4, the Web Server (IIS) feature, WSS 3.0 if required, and SQL Server 2008 Express if required. I reused existing service accounts on the domain for SQL Server and TFS and created a new service account for Reporting Services. Some other bits were left to run as Network Service.

When installation completes, the configuration wizard kicks off. I went with the advanced option since I didn’t want to install SharePoint. 

The entire process was a smooth experience until I ran into an old nemesis for those of us opposed to daylight saving here in Western Australia:

tf255356 Error occurred while executing servicing step Create Warehouse for component TfsWarehouse during Install: The supplied DateTime represents an invalid time.  For example, when the clock is adjusted forward, any time in the period that is skipped is invalid.

This is interesting because the push for daylight savings was defeated a while back and the latest timezone updates were reported to be installed on my new R2 machine.

Luckily Andreww posted a work around on the connect issue: change the timezone from (UTC +8:00) Perth to (UTC +8:00) Tapei (where daylight savings is also not observed and Windows recognises the fact…). Before I could continue I had to delete both the TFS_Configuration and TFS_Warehouse databases as they were created before this problem cropped up.

All good from there… configuration completed successfully. But groan nonetheless, Microsoft!

Installing Live Mesh Beta on Windows Server 2008 R2

It’s never easy… the downloader doesn’t seem to work from the web or somesuch, or at the very least not with Windows Server 2008 R2; running locally spits out an error about local policy not allowing the installer to run.

To work around this, add a new key named Installer below

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

and then create a DWORD named DisableMSI. Set the value to 0.

In my case I’d already downloaded the installer so I ran it locally, no change to UAC, no reboot, no –force switch on the installer. I’m meshed.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368304(VS.85).aspx

Ps. I deleted the key after install but it’s probably not necessary to do so.

Dirty Words (Michael Hanes) - blog.mediawhole.com mailto:info@mediawole.com