Of course, I could not immediately find it and had to go flipping through all the ribbons before I finally saw it! By default, in Word 2010, it’s located on the Review tab under the Proofing section.

Clicking on that will give you not only the number of words, but also other stats like pages, characters with and without spaces, paragraphs and lines.

I still find this quite annoying since I use it so often, so I wanted a quicker way to access this same info. Luckily in Word 2010, there is an option to add the word count to the status bar at the bottom. Just right-click on the status bar and you’ll see an option for Word Count.

Once you select that, you’ll see the word count at the bottom left of the status bar:

That’s pretty much it! If you want, you can also add Word Count to your quick access toolbar by right-clicking on the icon in the Review tab and choosing Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

Now it’ll also show up at the very top, but this is really no different than it being in the status bar, it’s just a personal preference. You have both options.

As an extra bonus, I’ll just throw in a few more features that I used a lot but took a minute to find in Office 2010. For example, where is the Find & Replace in Word 2010? On the home tab, at the very far right, click on Replace.

Where is spell check in Word 2010? Again, this is on the Review tab under Proofing.

And finally where is the developer tab for those of us who need it? For that, you need to click on File, Options and then click on Customize Ribbon. Under Main Tabs, you need to check the box next to Developer Tab.

This will allow you to open Visual Basic and record macros, etc. If you’re looking for something else in Word 2010, let us know in the comments and we’ll get back to you! Enjoy!

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Not so with Outlook 2010 or any previous version of Outlook. Nothing is stored in the cloud and therefore everything is based on local files. That is true for the autocomplete suggestion feature also. Basically, every time you type in a name or an email address in Outlook, it stores this into a file and so the next time you type that name or email, it will autocomplete it for you.

If you have used Outlook for years, then your autocomplete database could be huge and if it suddenly stops working, it becomes a real pain to email someone! Sometimes autocomplete stops working because of problems with the PST file and other times it’s because of upgrading to a newer version of Outlook from previous versions. I’ve also run into the problem where the autocomplete will work within one session of Outlook, but the second you close it and open it again, the entries are all gone.

In this article, I’ll go through a few methods I’ve learned over the years to fix the autocomplete problem in Outlook 2010 and also how to transfer the autocomplete suggestions from one Outlook to another.

Repair PST File

The usual problem when your autocomplete stops working has something to do with your PST file. The first thing to try is to repair the PST file and see if your autocomplete entries come back or stop resetting. You can do this by going to the following location on Windows 7 64-bit

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

and running the scanpst.exe file. Click Browse and navigate to your PST file. If it’s in the default location, browse to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook. By default, it should be called Outlook.pst.

If you see that the repair tool fixed some problems with the PST file, then you’ll probably be lucky and your autocomplete should be working normally again, especially if it was resetting each time you closed and opened Outlook.

Method 2 – Import NK2 Files

All versions of Outlook before 2010 stored this name/email information in a file with a NK2 extension. Outlook 2010 stores it differently and therefore you have to import this file if you’re trying to get suggestion data from an older version of Outlook into Outlook 2010.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980542

Check out the above Microsoft KB article on how to do this. You can download their FixIT program and simply choose the NK2 file and it will do the rest for you. If you want to do it yourself, you can find the file in the following location for Outlook 2003/2007 running Windows 2000 or XP:

 C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

For Outlook 2003/2007 running Windows Vista or 7:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

Now in order to import it into Outlook 2010, you need to make sure the NK2 file is located in this directory:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming

Finally, click on Start, type run and in the Open dialog box, type in the following command:

outlook.exe /importnk2

That should import the name cache from an older version of Outlook into Outlook 2010.

Method 3 – Empty the Autocomplete Cache

In some instances, to get this working again in Outlook 2010, you may have to clear out the Autocomplete cache. If everything is gone already, then this won’t matter, but it should help with the problem of the cache resetting over and over again.

To empty the cache, go to File and click on Options. Then click on Mail and scroll down to the Send Mail section.

Click on the Empty Auto-Complete List button. It’s also a good idea to uncheck the Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, CC, and Bcc lines box. Exit out of Outlook and then re-check the box. Try typing in a few email addresses and then exiting Outlook and opening it again and seeing if the names are still there.

Method 4 – Rename the RoamCache

You can also completely get rid of your current cache and start from scratch, which might be the only way to get the problem to go away. You simply have to rename the RoamCache folder to something else and Outlook will create a new one when you start up the program again.

For Windows Vista & 7:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

For Windows 2000 & XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

Method 5 – Edit NK2 File

Even though Outlook 2010 does not have a NK2 specifically, it does still store the info in a file, but with a different name. The name of the file is;:

Stream_Autocomplete_X_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.dat

And it’s located in here:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

If you are on Windows XP with Outlook 2010, then it’s here:

 C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

In Method 4, we renamed this RoamCache folder, but that delete everything and makes you start from scratch. If you just started having this problem, then you might be able to recover some of the name suggestions by opening this Stream.dat file in a program called NK2Edit:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/outlook_nk2_edit.html

The first thing you can try is to simply open the .dat file with NK2Edit and then close it. Make sure Outlook is closed when you do this. Then open Outlook and see if that fixed the problem. Note that this program will automatically detect if you have Outlook 2010 installed and will load up the cache file for you if it’s stored in the default location. You should see your autocomplete list instantly:

If it didn’t open or you can’t open it manually, then you need to create a new cache file and replace the current stream.dat file.You can do this by opening NK2Edit and going to File – New .NK2 File.

Then go to Actions and choose Add Records from Address Book.

Now select the contact that you want to use to create the new NK2 file. You don’t have to select all the contacts if you don’t want. You can also click the drop down and click on Suggested Contacts and see if anything is there. If not, just choose Contacts and then Control + click to choose individual contacts.

Now do a File – Save As and browse to the location of the current cache file (stream_autocomplete) and change the Save as type to .dat instead of NK2.

For the file name, just select the current file that you will be replacing. That’s it! Kind of a long process, but it does work! And now you know how to totally fix and edit the autocomplete list yourself if you ever wanted to!

If you are still having problems or something is not clear, post a comment here and I’ll try to help! Enjoy!

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“Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.”

What’s sad is that I’ve had this EXACT same problem in Outlook 2007 and I even wrote about an article about it over a year ago:

http://helpdeskgeek.com/office-tips/fix-cannot-start-microsoft-office-outlook-error/

For whatever reason, the solution to the problem in Outlook 2010 is different and none of those methods worked for me when trying to fix it for 2010. So read the previous post and if nothing there works for you, then try the methods listed below.

Method 1 – Delete Registry Key

Click on Start and type in regedit to open the registry editor in Windows 7.

Navigate to the following key in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem

Now delete the Profiles key that is under Windows Messaging Subsystem. Restart your computer and try to open Outlook 2010. Hopefully that fixes your problem!

Method 2 – Install Latest Service Pack and Microsoft Upates

The next thing you can try if that didn’t work for you is to install the latest Office 2010 service pack, which is SP 1 right now.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26617

This has fixed the problem for quite a few people, so if nothing else is working for you, then definitely install SP 1 and also download all the latest security updates from Microsoft using Windows Update.

Method 3 – Open Task Manger/Kill Process

This problem of Outlook not starting can also be caused by multiple instances of Outlook running without being properly killed. If you go into Task Manger (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), you should only see one Outlook process running.

If you see more than one outlook.exe in the process list, go ahead and select each one and choose End Process. Once you have killed off all of the Outlook processes, then try to restart Outlook and see if it loads properly.

So there you have a couple of more possible solutions to this very annoying problem! If you have found a different solution, post a comment here and let us know! Enjoy!

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Cannot verify license for this product

Hmmm, of course I have a license! The product key was valid and it had activated fine over the Internet when I first installed it, so I wasn’t sure exactly why I was getting this error. Anyway, after playing around with a couple of possible solutions, it’s now running without the error message popping up. In this article, I’ll list out the various steps I tried to solve the issue and hopefully it will work for you.

Method 1 – Change Time & Reactivate

One suggestion was to set the system time back to the date of the original install of Office 2010, then re-enter the product key, activate the product, and then change the time back to the current date. So after you change the time on your computer, you can enter the product key by going to Control Panel - Programs and Features.

Now click on Microsoft Office 2010 and click on the Change button.

Now, check the radio button next to “Enter Product Key” and click on Next.

Now go ahead and find your product key for Office 2010, which is usually on the packaging and type it into the box.

After you are done, you can launch any program in Office 2010 and do the activation. At this point, if it activated successfully, you can change the time back to the current date and time. It should stay activated even after restarting. If not, keep reading!

Method 2- System Restore

If Office 2010 was working fine and all of a sudden started having this problem, you can always try a system restore. You can get to system restore by click on Start and typing in system restore. You can also read more about how to use it here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/system-restore

Try to restore the computer to a time when you knew Office 2010 was working without any issues.

Method 3 – Office Software Protection Platform

Office 2010 SP1 adds a new service called Office Software Protection Platform, which will sometime require you to reactivate Office. You can fix it by following these steps (doesn’t require you to uninstall or reinstall office):

1. Type in services.msc in the search box and stop the service called Office Software Protection Platform.

2. Now go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform and rename tokens.dat to tokens.old.

Note that in order to see the ProgramData folder, you need to open Explorer and click on the Organize button and click on Folder and Search options.

Click on the View tab and then make sure to click the Show hidden files and folders radio button.

3. Now go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform\Cache and rename cache.dat to cache.old.

4. Now restart the computer and open any Office program. You’ll be asked to retype your product key and then restart again. Again open any Office program and you may have to type in the key one more time. It will then ask you to activate online and you’re good to go.

Method 4 – Uninstall & Reinstall

At this point, if you’re still having issues, then you may need to perform a full uninstall and reinstall and then reactivate Office 2010. However, the way you want to do this is by properly uninstalling using the Microsoft FixIT tool.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301#Method2

You can uninstall using the Control Panel, but I would recommend using the FixIT tool since it really cleans out all the files, etc. It’s also a good idea to use something like CCleaner to clear out any left-behind registry entries after the uninstall. At this point, go ahead and try to install Office 2010 again using the original CD/DVD and then activate the product.

Hopefully, one of the methods above fixed your problem! If not, post a comment here with details of your setup and we’ll try to help! Enjoy!

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The first thing you’ll want to do is to log into your Gmail account and click on the Settings icon at the top right, then click on Mail Settings.

Next, click on Fowarding and POP/IMAP and make sure that IMAP is enabled. I would recommend disabling POP as it’s not nearly are powerful as the IMAP protocol. The preferred choice nowadays is IMAP. It keeps the client and the server in sync rather than having two separate copies of your email.

The next thing you’ll want to do is fire up Outlook 2010 and then click on the File menu option at the top. Click on the Account Settings button and then click on Account Settings.

Now under the Email tab, you’re going to want to click the New button.

A dialog will pop up where you can enter the email account info. Just type in your name, your Gmail address and your password. If you are setup with 2-step verification, go to your Gmail settings and create a new application password for Outlook. Then just copy and paste the application password in Outlook.

Click Next and Outlook 2010 will do the rest for you! Yes, it’s really that simple! It will login for you and even send you a test email on your Gmail account to verify everything is working properly.

You’ll now see the new Gmail account setup in Outlook 2010 as shown below.

That’s it! Now it will download all your labels, which will be represented as folder in Outlook 2010. The middle pane will show the emails and the reading pane on the right will have the content of the current email just like a normal email setup in Outlook.

You should be all set at this point. The main things to remember are to enable IMAP on your Gmail account and to create a new application password if you are using 2-step verification with Gmail. Now whenever you delete an email in Outlook, it will delete from your Gmail account and vice versa.

If you have any questions or you are getting an error during the process, post a comment here with the details and I’ll try to help you! Enjoy!

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