MS Project 2010 Pro & I.E 8

Everything has been going good on setting up and testing MS Project Server 2010. How nice it would be if you don't see any issues. Yes, this is the time. It's on the compatibility issues that am undergoing. No blaming of such a nice product, but yet it doesn't work on IE 6, of course on other browsers like Mozilla, Chrome and Safari.

Here is the scenario. We are on IE 6 though we have many people started using either IE 7 or IE 8. However the people who are to evaluate P14 is on IE 6 for very specific reasons, which is becoming a challenge. So right now I am hunting for the solution.


I know I will be able to provide remote connection to the host that has IE8 and MS Project 2010 installed. This can not be a solution rather than a work around. So am looking if there is any alternate to overcome. Right now evaluating IE Collection1.7 version which allows you to keep multiple version of IE on your computer for the same computer. 

My assumption and what I heard from consultants is that MS Project 2010 Pro will be looking for IE 7 or 8 as a base IE on the computer. Let me see what finding I have. Good weekend!

Unable to Activate MS Project 2010 Pro

This was an interesting issue that I came across. We had a team piloting MS Project Server 2010 and we provided MS Project 2010 Pro for project managers. 

Initially we began with trial version and it expired after the limited days. We then decided to use the volume licensing copy. The media remained same for all the installations. And below is the scenario.

1. All the users had Windows XP

2. All the users had trial version of MS Project 2010 Pro installed

3. We uninstalled the trial version. Installed the full version later using same media.

4. Activated the product using Internet.

Problem:

Out of all those installations, it went wrong for one user. It showed an error message as below.

An unspecified error has occurred. Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later ( 0x8004FC12)

Solution:

We tried multiple time with reboot and it didn't help. Finally went through Premier Support of Microsoft. Had the solution and it was damn easy which we didn't think. There existed a proxy configuration on I.E that blocked the user having the installation activated. 


Caution: 
This works when the identified problem is on IE Proxy Settings. If you have proper proxy settings and still the error appears, I would strongly recommend to take support from the product support group.
Also changing the proxy configuration of IE may result in interrupting your other day to day work. Purpose of this post to share the experience that I had.

Let me try to edit this post later to add more information. But basically you have the solution for this scenario for now.

The American Days 2011

 
            I happen to be a typical Indian software engineer to board a flight to the United States of America on January 9th 2011. I never had this experience of flying for more than 2 hours and that too a different country. Well I could say that I've never been abroad like this ;-)

           It took 4 hours to reach the transit at Dubai. Was a a terrific as I started in mid night and seat was not good as I expected. Spent an hour and half in Dubai International Airport and took the next connecting flight to San Francisco. It was a straight 16 hrs flight. After some sleep, movies, watching around, watching outside and drinks I finally reached at SFO. 

            Here are the things that I came out so far... and will blog on each of them going forward.

1. 17 Mile Drive

2. Livermore Temple

3. San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge

4. San Francisco - Pier 93 (The Aquarium Bay)

5. San Francisco - Wax Museum