Daily Server Report scripts updated

I’ve made some updates to the daily server report scripts that I posted last August. I’ve updated the older post to reflect the changes, but you can also download the new scripts by clicking here.

Finding the hidden Search options in Outlook 2011

One thing in Outlook 2011 that can be surprisingly hard to find for new users is the Search function. There’s a search field readily visible, but it only searches the currently selected folder. Why Microsoft made the user interface choice to hide the ability to search is somewhat of a mystery to me, but here’s how you access all of the other search options in Outlook 2011.

To search the current folder in Outlook 2011, you click in the Search This Folder blank and type in what you’re looking for.

Outlook will then give you selectable search options for what you typed in.

Printing from Word 2011 and showing Track Changes markups

I was asked by one of my users “How do I print from Word 2011 and see the markups from Track Changes?” I had no idea, so I had to do some poking around until I found the right options. Here’s how it works for anyone else who needs it.

1. In Word 2011, go to File: Print.

2. In the Print window, click on the Copies & Pages drop-down menu.

3. Select Microsoft Word from the Copies & Pages drop-down menu.

4. Click on the Print What: menu and select Document showing markup.

5. Click the Print button

Your Word document should print and show all current edits made to the document with Track Changes.

Reinstalling X11 on a 10.5.8 Mac

I had a problem come up in my workplace for a MATLAB user, where MATLAB wasn’t launching. On investigation, it appeared X11 wasn’t launching. To fix this, I had to reinstall X11 on the user’s 10.5.8 Mac.

Here’s what I did to reinstall X11:

1. Before you change anything, make sure you have a Mac OS X 10.5.6 installation DVD available.

2. Log into the Mac using an account with administrative rights and open Terminal.

3. Back up your existing X11 directory and remove /usr/X11R6 (/usr/X11R6 is a symbolic link that points to /usr/X11.)

sudo mv /usr/X11 /usr/X11.back

sudo rm /usr/X11R6

4. Have your 10.5.x Mac forget its X11-related receipts:

sudo pkgutil –forget com.apple.pkg.X11DocumentationLeo

sudo pkgutil –forget com.apple.pkg.X11User

sudo pkgutil –forget com.apple.pkg.X11SDKLeo

sudo pkgutil –forget org.x.X11.pkg

5. Once that’s done, reinstall the following two packages:

Install X11User.pkg from the Optional Installs metapackage, which is on the 10.5.6 DVD in the Optional Installs folder

Install X11SDK.pkg, which is on the 10.5.6 DVD in the Optional Installs/Xcode Tools/Packages folder

6. Restart.

Once that’s done, double-clicking /Applications/Utilities/X11.app should launch X11 and give you an xterm window.

Uninstalling the Retrospect 6.x backup client

Something I liked about the old Installer VISE Retrospect backup client installer was that it had an “Uninstall” function. That ability was lost when Retrospect’s builders switched to using standard Apple .pkg installers. There was an unofficial AppleScript uninstaller that was posted in the Retrospect forums, but it didn’t address the issue of 10.6’s receipts being stored in a different directory. So I’ve built this script to take care of uninstalling Retrospect 6.x clients:


#!/bin/sh

sudo killall retroclient
sudo killall pitond
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/retroclient.state
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/retrospectClient.pkg
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/retroclient.pkg
sudo rm /var/db/receipts/com.retrospect.retroclientstartupitems.pkg.bom
sudo rm /var/db/receipts/com.retrospect.retroclientstartupitems.pkg.plist
sudo rm /var/db/receipts/com.retrospect.retrospectclient.pkg.bom
sudo rm /var/db/receipts/com.retrospect.retrospectclient.pkg.plist


Script available here on my GitHub repository.

It should stop both older and newer Retrospect 6.x clients on both 10.5.x and 10.6.x and clean up all application, settings and receipts files. Because I also wanted to be able to hand this script off as needed to those not necessarily comfortable with running scripts, I’ve also built a script-only installer package to run these commands. It’s posted here for download.