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More Fix it solutions, and some technical details for my geek friends

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As I indicated in my last post, we continue to release new Fix it solutions in the Knowledge Base (KB). Over the last couple of weeks, the total number of solutions in the KB has jumped from 11 to 32. At the same time, we've also released a couple of Fix it solutions for Windows Error Reporting (WER) issues. If you're a geek, you have probably noticed that all of our Fix it solutions currently in the KB are Windows Installer (MSI) packages. On the other hand, the WER solutions that are available today use an ActiveX control. In the future, we might release both MSI and ActiveX Fix it solutions in KB articles, WER responses, and in other content. So I want to take a minute to provide my geek friends with a few technical details about these two types of Fix it solutions.

For MSI Fix it solutions, a successful installation is logged in the Application Event Log with a message ID of 11707. Here's an example:

Log Name: Application
Source: MsiInstaller
Date: 1/8/2009 3:54:32 PM
Event ID: 11707
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: UserName
Computer: ComputerName
Description: Product: Disable Microsoft Internet Explorer Script Debugging -- Installation completed successfully.

An unsuccessful MSI installation is logged with a message ID of 11708. Note that unsuccessful might just mean that the fix did not apply because some pre-condition was not met (for example, you tried to run a fix for Windows XP on a Windows Vista computer). Here's an example:

Log Name: Application
Source: MsiInstaller
Date: 1/18/2009 2:41:18 PM
Event ID: 11708
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: UserName
Computer: ComputerName
Description: Product: Increase Folder View Settings And Customizations Limit -- Installation failed.

Also note that our MSI packages create a restore point, so you can use System Restore to undo. Here's an example screenshot.

For ActiveX Fix it solutions, the FixItClient Class control registers itself in the registry with a CLSID of {588031A3-94BF-4CDD-86D0-939F6F93910F} and places three files in the Downloaded Program Files folder (under %systemroot% by default):

ActiveX file information
File name: Fixitcontrol.dllFile version: 1.2.10.1File size: 170,848 bytesMD5 Hash: 872577cbb4b4e8057ac5140e265a9846 SHA-1 Hash: ac444213628b3698e5f0a68f8d7743ca3ebe7bee
File name: Fixitexecutora.exeFile version: 1.2.10.1File size: 162,144 bytesMD5 Hash: 6ca94386d72558386307ac12bb48c0af SHA-1 Hash: 3f144806c85f691693813beb45f20413ad08abcb
File name: Fixitshared.dllFile version: 1.2.10.1File size: 97,648 bytesMD5 Hash: e0dfaa1f10b1a0f782e3db18c6904aca SHA-1 Hash: 2caa2c89ba525354fbbcf0820dea057e018465ef

The ActiveX control also appears as FixItClient Class in the Internet Explorer's Manage Add-ons UI and can be enabled, disabled, or deleted from there. Here's a screenshot.

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