FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  490 (06/12/05)

Q

We use Windows XP and MS Outlook and I want to send out a newsletter by email to approximately 150 addresses. I cannot send it in a format that addresses are obvious to each recipient. I also need to set up an "unsubscribe" link.

What is the best way of doing this? I thought of putting all the addresses into the Bcc part, but was advised this was not a good idea. There must be a simple solution as this format is used daily for mailings by many companies.

Anne Elliott, via email

A.

Outlook and Outlook Express are not designed for mass emailing, though the Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy) facility will allow you to do this. The other recipient’s addresses will not be exposed but the emails will not be personally addressed so there is a fair chance they will be treated as Spam and deleted.

The only practical solution is to use bulk emailing software and most of them include mailing list management features, like  ‘unsubscribe’, address verification and so on. However, many of the commercial programs are designed for large-scale operations and this is usually reflected in the price but there are some freeware alternatives and I would have a look at Groupmail 5 free edition, though this is only intended for relatively small lists, of up to 100 recipients. There are also some reasonably priced shareware programs worth considering, like 1st Mass Mail and Bulk Email, which are both well specified and cost less than $60.

Q

The Printer Icon on my Word toolbar has suddenly disappeared. I've looked at Customize on the Tools menu but I can't find anything to do with printing. How do I get it back?

Brian Perriss, via email

A

I not sure how or why your printer icon went awol but you were looking in the right place to get it back. You can also open the Customize menu by right clicking into an empty area of the toolbar, select the Commands tab then in the Categories panel highlight File. Scroll down the list in the Commands window until you find the Print icon then click, hold drag and drop the icon onto the toolbar of your choice.

Q

In our house we are acquiring a number of PCs and Laptops all connected to the Internet via a router. However they are all sitting in their own Workgroup, which means a lot of work when it comes to sharing folders, files etc by creating shortcuts etc. It seems to me the simplest thing to do would be to create a home domain. However I do not want another large, noisy box sitting there as a server, and do not want to rebuild any of the workstations to be a server. Is there such a thing as a "server in a box"? An external hard drive for example, with an Ethernet connection that can be attached to the network and configured to be a domain controller?

Tony Kibble, via email

A.

If I understand you correctly there’s no need for any extra hardware and all you have to do is change all the PCs in your network to the same Workgroup name. Once that is done just set up file sharing on the folders or drives on the PCs that you want to be able to share amongst the other Workgroup users. File and printer sharing is explained in Boot Camp 391, the final part of our series on wireless networking.

Q

Getting rid of hidden traces after web surfing seems a good idea, and Evidence Eliminator claims to be the best software to do it. But it seems rather a drastic business, and the very hard sell makes me suspicious. I am afraid of picking up some malware. Do you have any experience with this or similar programs?

David Satchell, via email

A.

I am reluctant to comment on programs that I haven’t tried but if all you want to do is clear out hidden and protected log files like the notorious index.dat then look no further than the excellent CCleaner (Crap Cleaner). It works with all versions of Windows, it’s safe, easy to use and best of all it is completely free. There’s more about index.dat and the other tracking systems lurking Windows in Boot Camp 293.

Q

I run Microsoft Office Professional 2003 and find that I cannot add Outlook Junk email updates KB907492 and KB907417. Please can you point me in the right direction to correct these matters? The last resort is delete and restore Office Professional, but that involves upgrading from Office 97 to Office 2000 and then finally to Office 2003 but I am not sure that would work.

Chris Pashley, via email

A.

There seems to be several possible causes and the first thing I would do is have a look at the Microsoft Knowledgebase article 822798, which deals with updating problems in general and if any of the error messages match yours try the suggested solutions. Alternatively I would try downloading the update to your desktop and try installing it off-line as that seems to have helped in quite a few cases. Also make sure that the Office installation CD is not in the drive when you download or when you come to install the update.

Q

I keep getting the following error message when working with Microsoft Word ‘Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Runtime Error Abnormal Program Termination’.

The screen freezes and all work is lost when I get this message because it appears that there is no alternative other than to terminate the Word window. 

David Taylor, via email

A

As always with Word problems try renaming the normal.dot global template file (call it normal.old), which may be corrupt. This fixes ninety five percent of Word problems. The next time you start Word a new normal.dot file will be created and hopefully that’s the last you see of those error messages. For the record in Windows XP normal.dot can usually be found in: C:\Documents and Settings\<yourname>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

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© R. Maybury 2005, 2211