Tag: Microsoft

Outlook 2016 Error – A required action was not successful because of an unspecified error

When trying to digitally sign an email message in Outlook 2016 for Windows running in Windows 10 you may get this error:

Error - A required action was not successful because of an unspecified error
“A required action was not successful because of an unspecified error”

Encrypting emails works fine, it is only when you try to JUST sign an email you get this error. This error appears to only occur with Outlook x64 (64-bit). When you search the internet on the error “A required action was not successful because of an unspecified error” in relation to Outlook for Windows the most common solution you come across is to run the command “sfc /scannow” in an elevated command prompt. This didn’t work for me when I tried it on Windows 10 Enterprise (Current Branch) with Outlook 2016 for Windows. The solution that worked for me was in this forum post. The solution in that post was to enable the email security option “Request S/MIME receipt for all S/MIME signed messages”. Once I did that I was able to sign emails successfully without getting any errors. Sending emails to non-exchange email users with this option enabled doesn’t appear to have any adverse effects.

How to Fix the Problem of an Album Appearing Multiple Times in the Zune Software

There is a problem with the Zune software in how it handles some albums. In particular compilation albums which contains songs from different artists. The problem is that the same album will appear many times in the album listing in the Zune software. This can be very annoying. To fix the problem of an album appearing multiple times in the Zune software perform the following steps:

  1. Download and install the free MP3Tag program
  2. Launch MP3Tag and navigate to the folder on the hard drive which contains your MP3 or .wma files.
  3. Select all files in the album
  4. Click the “Actions (Quick)” button
  5. Select action “Format Value”
  6. Select the value “BAND” in the top drop down box
  7. In the bottom text box, specify: %album%
  8. Click OK to commit the changes
  9. Relaunch your Zune software and now you should only see one listing for your album

Zunes

How to Remove the Loading Screen in Windows Vista

Windows Vista displays a boot loading splash screen with a small progress bar animation. Behinds the scenes drivers and configurations are being loaded. For troubleshooting purposes it is useful to remove the simple boot loading screen and display the drivers and configurations being loaded while Windows Vista starts up. Here is how you remove the simple boot loading screen and display the verbose boot loading screen:

  1. Open run by pressing Window Key+r
  2. Type “msconfig” without the double quotes and press ENTER.
  3. Click on the boot tab and check the option “OS boot information“.
  4. Click ok and apply

Windows Vista

Access Windows Live Hotmail in Outlook

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector is a free program released by Microsoft which will allow you to access your Hotmail and Microsoft Office Live email accounts from within Outlook. Here is Microsoft’s official description of the application:

With Outlook Connector, you can use Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages and contacts for free! Calendar, tasks and notes synchronization are not available on all services. If your service offers calendar synchronization, tasks and notes will synchronize as well. See the feature list for your service for details.

Outlook Connector enables you to use your Live Hotmail accounts within Outlook:

  • Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages.
  • Manage your Live Mail Contacts.
  • Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages.
  • Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place.

With a paid subscription, Outlook Connector enables these additional features:

  • Manage, share, and synchronize your Windows Live Calendar in Outlook.
  • Access your Tasks and Notes.

You can download the application from Microsoft from this web page: Link

Microsoft Office Connector