There appears to be a fair amount of what’s called “DNS Poisoning” going on with Rogers DNS (Domain Name Servers). The Internet doesn’t understand addresses like www.npinc.ca. It understands what’s called IP (Internet Protocol) addresses such as 208.67.222.222. The purpose of a Domain Name Server is to interpret human language (www.npinc.ca) into an address the Internet understands.

DNS poisoning is when a Domain Name Server either can’t figure out what the IP address is, or points to the wrong IP address. By default those using Rogers Internet use Rogers DNS servers to point them in the right direction. Unfortunately it seems that there’s quite a few entries that are broken or “poisoned”. As an end user you see errors such as “Page cannot be displayed” even when the page actually exists.

We ran into it with a client on Rogers trying to access Microsoft’s Office 365. The solution was to change where their computer goes to look up website addresses. The best one we’ve found, which is fast and free, is OpenDNS. In this tutorial I’ll explain how to tell your computer to look there for the website information it needs.

1. Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button and then clicking Control Panel.
2. In the top right hand corner, change the view to Large Icons.

3.  Under Network and Sharing Center, click View network connections.
4.  Right-click the connection that you want to change, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Networking tab.
6. “Under This connection uses the following items”, click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and then click Properties.

To change your IP address settings to OpenDNS, do the following:

 1.  Click Use the following DNS server addresses, and then, in the Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server boxes, type the following:

Primary DNS:      208.67.222.222
Secondary DNS: 208.67.220.220

 2.  Click OK, then OK again.
 3.  Try going to the website again.

After the recent Office 365 service upgrade some clients are reporting that their Outlook stays in a “disconnected” state. There seems to have been some subtle changes made that may break some Outlook Exchange email settings. If your Outlook is disconnected after the service upgrade of Office 365, try the following steps to get it connected again:

Repair an Outlook 2007 profile:

1. click on Tools;
2. click Account Settings;
3. In the Account Settings dialog box, click on the E-mail tab;
4. In the Email tab select your account;
5. Click Repair above the accounts list. Follow any prompts from the repair wizard; then
6. When the repair is complete, restart Outlook 2007.

Repair an Outlook 2010 profile:

1. Click on the File tab;
2. click the down arrow next to Account Settings;
3. click Account Settings;
4. In the Account Settings dialog box, click the E-mail tab;
5. In the Email tab select your account;
6. click Repair above the accounts list. Follow any prompts from the repair wizard; then
7. When the repair is complete, restart Outlook 2010.

If your Outlook fails to connect or stay connected, contact us today for assistance.  705.739.2.FIX (349)

I ran across the error “your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer” when helping a client with his Sharepoint site this morning on Windows 7. The idea is to be able to browse your Sharepoint files from Office 365 on your local computer. All the usual “fixes” didn’t work, such as adding them as trusted sites, resetting the browser, disabling protected mode, standing on your head with one hand on your nose and sprinkling fairy dust, etc.

Then I got to thinking. Not that long ago Microsoft forced out an update to Internet Explorer while we were sleeping. Whether you liked it or not, you woke up with IE10. So I’m wondering to myself…is it possible that the reason I’m getting the “your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer” in Sharepoint because Microsoft broke something else? Nahhh.. Say it ain’t so.

Well, not trusting that Microsoft would get IE10 right, I uninstalled it. I rebooted the machine, restarted IE (not 64 bit, but 32 bit. 64 bit IE has issues with Sharepoint and pretty much everything else) which proudly proclaimed that I’d “upgraded” to IE9 and reconnected to his Sharepoint service. Low and behold, wouldn’t you know it, the “your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer” error was gone. Windows Explorer opened within seconds, and all was well in Sharepoint land once more.

Steps to troubleshoot the error

Now, since this is client dependent, I’ll itemize the rest of the steps that you can take here to troubleshoot the annoying “your client does not support opening this list with windows explorer” error.

1) Ensure that you are running 32 bit Internet Explorer 9 and that all your updates are done otherwise. To check, click on the gear in the top right corner of IE and click “About Internet Explorer”. If it doesn’t say 64 bit in there, you’re good

2) Ensure that Protected Mode has been disabled. This is an ugly work around and shouldn’t be required, but we’ve found it is for Sharepoint.  Click on the gear, Internet Options and go to the Security tab.  Make sure the Internet zone is highlighted and then uncheck the box that says Enable Protected Mode (requires restarting Internet Explorer).  Click Apply.

3) Add your Sharepoint website address to the Trusted Sites.  Click on the gear, Internet Options and go to the Security tab.  Click Trusted Sites and then click the Sites button.  Add your site address and click Apply.

4) Make sure the WebClient service is running.  In Windows 7, the chances are good that it already is.  However, on the OFF chance that it isn’t, hold down the Windows key (bottom left corner of your keyboard) and press R.  A run dialogue box will come up.  Type in services.msc and click OK.

When the Services snap-in shows up, scroll down to WebClient.  Make sure that it’s enabled (set to either Manual or Automatic and that it’s running.  If it just so happens not to be, highlight it by clicking on it and then click Start in the top left corner of the box.

5) Finally, when you log into Sharepoint or Office 365 make sure to check the “Keep me signed in” check box before clicking “Sign in”

So what’s the storal of this mory? None really. Except that Microsoft didn’t fail to disappoint…They broke their own software with their own software.