The requested lookup key was not found in any active activation context

After doing a repair on a windows installation which was corrupted we were getting the following error when trying to go to a website from the address bar of Internet Explorer 6 and also when clicking on the windows update icon on the start menu.

I believe this was occurring because prior to the repair the computer had Internet Explorer 8 and some IE8 settings must have been still hanging around causing problems.

To fix this I was able to download the full version of IE8 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/worldwide-sites.aspx (or just google for “IE8 download”) using an installation of Firefox on the system and then installing it off of the hard drive. After a reboot I was able to run windows update and browse again.

If you don’t have another browser on the system just download the installation files on another system and copy them over using some sort of external drive.

Some websites say that you can uninstall the previous installation of IE8 or IE7 using the Add/Remove programs but in this case the entry was not in the list. There is also an uninstaller under c:\windows\ie7 or c:\windows\ie8 but the uninstaller failed in this case.

Add a static route to Windows

To add a static route to windows you can use the route command:

To view the existing routes on a machine. Open a command prompt and type the following:

route print

To add a static route:

route add <target> mask <netmask> <gateway IP> metric <metric cost> if <interface>

eg. route add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.10.1.1 metric 1

The above static route will only be available till the machine in rebooted. To add a persistane route (one that lives after a reboot of the machine) add the -p switch to the command.

eg. route -p add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.10.1.1 metric 1

The following registry key holds the values for static routes.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\PersistentRoutes

As with other command prompt commands you can view all the options this command offers by typing route /? at the command prompt.

Moving Firefox from XP to Vista/Win7

To migrate your firefox settings from XP to Windows Vista or Windows 7 you will need to copy the below folder with firefox closed.

“c:\Documents and Settings\ProfileName\Application Data\Mozilla” to “C:\Users\ProfileName\AppData\Roaming”