Windows Installer Error: System Cannot Open the Device of File Specified

I had been having a problem when installing software that consisted of a single MSI file. Whenever I ran a MSI file I continuously received an error on the screen that prevented the application from being installed. I tried it on several installs, and they all produced the same error.

Realizing it wasn’t the actual individual installations, I began to experiment with a few file settings. After a few tests I determined the problem and was able to easily correct it so I could run installations again.

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Play Classic Games on Your PC

I am a child of the eighties, and grew up playing many of the early computer games. The games were smaller and simpler back then, and at times, you had to manage everything on your computer, including disk space usage and conventional memory. I started on a 8088 with 20 MB of disk space and 640 KB of RAM. Oh, and a CGA graphics card that could display 4 colours.

At times, I do enjoy trying to get some of the older games to play on my current computer. Sometimes they work, many times they don’t even want to try to work on XP or Vista. Then again, I’d rather not work on Vista myself. About a year ago I discovered a great site that sells old computer games, that will also play on the current Microsoft operating systems. I purchased one game back then, and I wasn’t disappointed.

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Protect Your Computer with Sandboxie

Keeping your data and computer secure is very important, especially if you spend much of your time online. There are many ways for hackers to gain access to your computer while you download files from web sites. This is why it is important to always install and use anti-virus and anti-malware software, a software firewall, and a hardware firewall.

I recently came across another utility that can also help protect your computer. This utility allows you to isolate all your internet activity so everything can be easily deleted if needed. It is a really small tool that I have been using for a few days called Sandboxie.

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Microsoft Word 2007 Keeps Registering

My trials with Microsoft Vista continue. I had issues in the past with iTunes continuously configuring itself, and now Microsoft Word 2007 doing something similar. I never had these problems with Windows XP, only on Vista.

This time Microsoft Word continued to auto-register itself whenever it was launched. I wouldn’t mind it so much, but it caused a 2 minute delay from the time I clicked the icon until it finally opened. Back to Google’s search I went and found a solution that worked.

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Convert a Microsoft Word Document to PDF for Free

Most people who have used a computer in the past have probably seen and read a PDF document. Many software and hardware manuals now come in a PDF version, or you can download them from their vendors. For those that don’t know about a PDF document, they are documents that will be displayed the same on any computer.

One popular question is how to create PDF documents from other applications. Microsoft Word is a popular word processing application, but it can’t natively save a PDF document. In this post I will walk you through the steps that will convert any Microsoft Word document to a PDF file for free.

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