Convert/Open MS Office 2007 file formats

With the launch of Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft has introduced new file extensions for example "xlsx", "docx", etc. This has created a division in the people who are using the new version and the ones who still prefer MS Office 2003.

Personally, I still use MS Office 2003 because it uses less system resources. It is particularly a good idea to use this old version in laptops where it is very easy to run low on system resources. The question that arises now is what to do when someone sends you a file created in MS Office 2007. This thought was at the back of my mind and I knew eventually someone would send me these new extension files that I will not be able to open.

Thankfully, Microsoft has provided a solution for this with Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. You can visit this link on Microsoft's site and download the file.

This component (once installed and after the Microsoft's fashionable system restart) will register the new extensions on your system. Now you will be able to open the "xlsx", "docx", etc files in your MS Office 2003. It is a 27.5 MB download though. But in my opinion, it is worth the effort as sooner or later you are bound to encounter a file created in MS Office 2007. This component not only enables you to open the new file formats, but you will also be able to edit, save and create documents in new file formats using the MS Office versions older than 2007.

You can also opt for online file converters such as docx2doc.com or zamzar.com. You will have to upload your file on their site and they will convert it to the older version and email you the file. I, however, prefer the converter that installs on your system.

Software Review: Agent Ransack

Software Name: Agent Ransack

License: Free

OS: Win 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/ XP SP2/2003/Vista

Rating: * * * * * (2 out of 5 stars)

Download File Size: Less than 1 MB

Download Now!

Most of us have used the Windows file search when trying to search for a particular file on our computer. If you have a lot of data, then it could take a while to go through it all. For this, Microsoft offers its Indexing Service. A few of you might have read this term but do not know exactly what it is.

There are a few advantages to using Microsoft Indexing Service, but the downside outweigh its advantages. Let's first understand what Microsoft Indexing Service does. It scans your disks and builds indexes in a database for some properties of the files. So when you search for a file name, these indexes are searched first. Searching the indexes is a little faster than going through the files, so you get your results a little faster. The difference in using the Microsoft Indexing Service is not that significant, so you will not feel a major difference. The disadvantage to using the Microsoft Indexing Service is that it hogs a lot of system memory. Sure the index building process is only active when the system is idle, but when you get back to work again you find your computer performing considerably slower and less responsive than you left it. Frankly speaking, it is not worth using the Microsoft Indexing Service as it only slows down your computer without providing any significant difference in searching speed. For the sake of keeping this article about the software review, we will discuss disabling the Indexing Service in a separate article.

With the Indexing Service out of the picture, let us now have a look at Microsoft's default search tool. Many users across the globe refer to it as a bloatware, meaning that it is slow and uses a lot of unnecessary memory. It also does not provide an option to include individual drives when searching for files in more than one drive. For example, you have 6 drives, and you want to search for a file in only 2 drives. The Windows search does not allow this feature; you can either search a single drive or search all of your 6 drives. This wastes a lot of your valuable time.

The solution to your file-searching problems might be a third party software Agent Ransack. There are many advantages to using Agent Ransack over your legacy Windows search. Agent Ransack:

• is a very light-weight application
• returns your search results much faster
• installs right-click context menus so that any directory can be searched directly from the file manager
• allows for including individual drives (e.g. 2 out of 6 drives) when searching multiple drives
• allows you to save your frequent search criteria
• previews the contents of the searched files in a pane so that you do not have to separately open each file
• supported Operating systems include Win 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/ XP SP2/2003/Vista

There are also a few cons to the software that I have experienced.

• It does not allow free-text entry for search criteria (you have to use wild cards such as * and ? or regular expressions). While this provides for more precise searching, but may be difficult to use for novices,
• It does not provide an option to change or set program's default settings,
• Does not provide an option to 'Open Containing Folder'.

Despite its cons, Agent Ransack is a freeware. If the features appeal to you, then try it out by downloading from the following link: Agent Ransack.

Forming a small network at home (PART IV)

This is the last in series of this article. Up till now we have relied on either manual settings or the DSL modem's ability to act as a DHCP server. If you do not have a DSL, or for that matter if your DSL modem does not have the capability to become a DHCP, then you are stuck with assigning the configuration manually. And like me if you plug-in your laptop at work and at your home, you will be changing your network parameters back and forth, which can be a pain sometimes. DHCP significantly reduces the system administration load.

Thankfully enough, Microsoft has provided a small DHCP service in Microsoft Windows XP Professional/Home Editions, that lets you set up a very simple DHCP server. Now this DHCP service may not be very configurable, but it caters to the basic necessity, and that is all we want at this point in time.

Revising DHCP basics
At this point we need to revise what we talked about DHCP. DHCP is simply a protocol through which IPs on a network are managed. A DHCP server is a computer that manages the assignment of IPs over a particular network. Say, if a new computer joins a network which has a designated DHCP server, then it is the DHCP server's responsibility to assign the new computer with IP configuration. The computer being assigned the IP will become a DHCP client. There should be only one DHCP server over a network but there can be multiple DHCP clients. Furthermore, a DHCP server and a DHCP client cannot be the same machine.

How does it work? When a DHCP client joins a network, it broadcasts a request to all machines on that network for IP configurations. Only the DHCP server responds to that request and it leases an IP address to the new computer along with assigning other network configurations. The validity period for this lease depends on the DHCP server being used. Some DHCP servers also give an option to reserve IP addresses against MAC (Media Access Control) addresses.

But as discussed before, the DHCP service provided with Microsoft Windows XP is a very basic one and it does not provide us features such as customizing the lease validity period and reservation of IPs.

Setup a DHCP server
To setup a DHCP server on Microsoft Windows XP, you need to allow Internet Connection Sharing on a connection other than your Local Area Connection (through which you access your home network). If you have a modem installed, then your task will become much simpler. If not, then you will have to setup a Loopback network adapter, which is a discussion for another article. The procedure for allowing Internet Connection Sharing on either the Loopback network adapter or the Dialup connection is the same.

To setup a DHCP server, do the following:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections,
   
   
   
2. Right-click on your Dial-up connection or your Loopback connection and click on 'Properties',
   
   
   
3. In the 'Advanced' tab, check the box labelled 'Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet Connection'. Keep other boxes unchecked,
   
   
   
4. In the combo-box labelled 'Home networking connection:', select 'Local Area Connection',
   
   
   
5. Click OK,
   
6. Windows will pop-up a dialog box to inform you that it is assigning a manual IP to the computer and so on. Click OK on that as well.

NOTE: I feel obligated to highlight one very obvious yet important fact here. The Operating System on the DHCP server must be running before you connect or start other computers. This must always be the case. This is because the DHCP clients will only try to automatically attain an IP either when the Operating System starts or when the network cable is plugged in. There are other conditions and remedies to this, but for the sake of keeping this article clutter free, we will discuss that in a future article.

Setup a DHCP client
Now that a computer on your network has a designated DHCP server, you need to configure all other machines on the network as DHCP clients. We've already discussed how to do this in the previous part of this article. You can go to the article Forming a small network at home (PART III) and move to the heading "Setup your computer as a DHCP client".

Forming a small network at home (PART III)

In this part of the article we will discuss how the computers in your network need to be configured if your DSL router is acting as a DHCP server.

Your DSL router acting as a DHCP server
Some of you might be using internet through a DSL service at your local area. For the most of you, the DSL connection might be configured for a single computer at your home. In such a case your computer is most probably configured with manual settings for internet and would not cater to any more computers if you wished to add any.

If your DSL router was configured as a DHCP server, then your network will become much more scalable. You can add as many computers to your network as your network switch allows, without the hassle of configuring the new computer each time it is added. For example, whenever I want to bring my work notebook on my home network all I have to do is plug-in the LAN cable into my notebook, and the DSL router automatically assigns the network configuration to my notebook. This way, I do not have the hassle of entering the configuration into my notebook everytime I need to connect it to my home network.

As every DSL router/modem has a different interface for configuration, we won't go into the detail of configuring the DSL routers/modems. You can, however, request your Internet Service Provider to make this configuration for you.

Setup your computer as a DHCP client
For your computer to accept the network configuration automatically from the DHCP server, you need to make it a DHCP client. A DHCP client is simply a computer that accepts network configuration from a DHCP server. To make your computer a DHCP client, do the following:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections,




2. Right-click 'Local Area Network' and click on 'Properties',




3. In the dialog window that opens, double-click 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)', as shown below:
   
   
   
   
   
4. Now, in the dialog window select 'Obtain an IP address automatically' and 'Obtain DNS server address automatically' radio buttons, as shown below:
   
   
   
   
5. Click OK on all open dialog windows.

These steps essentially set your computer to accept settings automatically from a DHCP server. Now, no matter which network you plug-in your computer, if it has a DHCP server on it, your computer will be automatically assigned network configuration to communicate over that network.

Using the Ping command

The ping command lets you verify whether another network node is reachable. It can also be used to determine the quality of the link between the computers. Let's see how to work with this command.

Running the Ping command
On a computer which is connected to a network, do the following:

1. Start > Run...,
2. Type in cmd and click OK,
3. On the command prompt, enter the command ping 192.168.0.2 and press Enter OR,
4. Enter the command ping computerName and press Enter, where computerName is the name of the remote computer.
   NOTE: Here, it is important to understand that in the ping command you should use the IP or computer name of the remote computer.

Identifying typical output behaviors of the Ping command
If the output of the ping command is something like:

Pinging 192.168.0.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.2: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.2: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=128
...

then it means that the remote computer with the given IP is alive as it is replying to our ping command.

If the output of the ping command looks something like:

Pinging 192.168.0.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.2: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

then there is a problem connecting to the remote computer with the given IP. This could occur for several bunch of reasons:

• one of the network cables could be unplugged,
• the remote computer might not be powered up,
• the remote computer may have a firewall that could be preventing communication,
• one of the network cables could be faulty or damaged,
• the remote computer may not have the IP configuration compatible with your computer,
• etc.

For guidance in setting up your network, refer to the article Forming a small network at home (Part II).

There are several other options you can use with the ping command. To list more optionsfor the ping command, enter ping /? at the command prompt.

Forming a small network at home (PART II)

Setting parameters manually on all computers
In this article I will discuss how to form a small network at home with two computers and a network switch/hub. For this article we will configure the TCP/IP settings manually. The ingredients needed here are discussed in the PART I of this article.

A. Connecting the computers physically:
First of all power up both your computers and your network switch. Now plug in one end of your patch cord (straight network cable) in the computer's LAN card port and the second end of the patch cord in any port of your network switch. Do the same with the second computer. The two computers are now physically connected.
NOTE: please remember to use a straight network cable that has been tested properly with a cable tester.

B. Configuring the TCP/IP settings:
On your first computer, do the following:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections,
2. Right click 'Local Area Connection' and select Properties,
3. In the Properties window, double click 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)',
4. Here, select 'Use the following IP address' radio button,
5. For IP address provide IP 192.168.0.1,
6. For Subnet mask provide 255.255.255.0,
7. Leave rest of the fields blank for now,
8. Click OK until you exit both dialog windows.

Now repeat the above steps 1 through 8 for the second computer, with the exception of providing the IP 192.168.0.2 in step 5.

C. Configure Windows Firewall
If you haven't tampered with the Windows Firewall up till now, then chances are that it is enabled. Your Windows XP Firewall will block any connections keeping the ports closed unless you add an exception. Here, we want Windows to allow file sharing, so we will add this type of communication as an exception.

On all computers, do the following:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections,
2. Right click 'Local Area Connection' and select Properties,
3. In the 'Advanced' tab click the settings button under Windows Firewall,
4. In the 'General' tab, 'On (recommended)' is probably selected. If not, select it,
5. In the same tab, uncheck 'Don't allow exceptions', as shown in the image above,
6. In the 'Exceptions' tab, find 'File and Printer Sharing' under 'Programs and Services' heading and check it,
7. Now click on the 'Edit...' button,
8. Click on the 'Change Scope' button,
9. In the 'Change Scope' dialog window select 'My network (subnet) only'. This will ensure that this type of communication is only allowed for your network,
10. Click OK on all open dialog windows and exit.

Congratulations, you have just configured your first network.

D. Verify if both computers are connected
The previously discussed 'ping' command can be used to verify if there is a connection between both the computers. For help using the ping command, please refer to the article: Using the Ping command.


Related articles on this blog

1. Forming a small network at home (PART I),
2. Forming a small network at home (PART III),
3. Forming a small network at home (PART IV),
4. Changing Network Authentication Mode,
5. Using the Ping command.