Adobe Acrobat: Fix for "Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: setdistillerparams; ErrorInfo: CalCMYKProfile U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2"

%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: setdistillerparams; ErrorInfo: CalCMYKProfile U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 ]%%
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
Error accessing color profile: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

For a while now, my PDF creation has been broken and I never really bothered to read the error message. When I finally did, I thought what a strange error to come across.

Somehow, the colour profile "U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2" has gone missing.

Good thing Adobe has these up on the internet for us to download.

• Go to the "ICC profiles for Windows" page to grab "Adobe ICC profiles".
• Click "Proceed to download"
• Click "Download Now" (So many steps to download a bloody file)
• Now extract "AdobeICCProfilesWin_end-user.zip"
• Go to "Adobe ICC Profiles (end-user)\CMYK Profiles"
• Right click "USWebCoatedSWOP.icc" and click "Install Profile".
• That should now fix your problems.

Well, okay just one of them.

Source

• Error "...OffendingCommand: setdistillerparams..." | Create PDF | Acrobat, Acrobat 3D
• Adobe - ICC profiles : For Windows

Survey Monkey: The comment you entered is in an invalid format.

Spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong with this due to vague emails from staff saying "teh surveh iz broke, plz fix kthx".

"Everything is urgent! Please fix immediately! I'm so important!"

After a bit of trial and error, the horribly worded error is due to a character limit imposed on the input field.

If your field is limited to 100 characters and the user inputs 101 or more characters, they'll get this vague error.

Just be sure to let them know of the limit in the description or something.

Source

Good old trial and error.

Windows 10 Tech Preview: Remove live tiles from the Start menu

If you're completely uninterested in any offerings from the Windows app store, then Microsoft have heard our cries and made them... OPTIONAL! Yes that's right!

For each tile that's been annoyingly preinstalled, you can remove unpin them from the start menu or even uninstall them until you get a nice clean start menu.

To hide or remove them, right click on each tile until satisfied. There will be some apps that you can't uninstall (such as PC settings), so you'll have to make do with using "Unpin from Start".

Oh sweet simplicity has never been so sexy!

Installing Windows 10 Tech Preview on Virtual Box

Downloads

First of all, you'll need the Windows 10 Tech Preview ISO. You can get it from Microsoft's download page. I grabbed English 64-bit (x64), which was "WindowsTechnicalPreview-x64-EN-US.iso"

Setting up the VM

Back over in Virtualbox-land, as per usual you just create a new virtual machine for Windows 8.1 and matching the build you've got (x86 or x64). I'll assume you got the x64 build. Everything is per usual, create a new hard-drive, etc.

Once you're done, go to "System" settings for that VM. Despite what another guide has wrongfully stated, make sure that "Enable EFI (special OSes only)" is OFF and under the Processor tab that "Enable PAE/NX" is OFF as well. If these are left on, you won't be able to enter the installation process.

Lastly, go to "Storage" and select the CD icon from "Storage tree". Click on the CD icon on the right and select "Choose a virtual disk file", then select your Windows 10 ISO file.

Installation

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Takes about half an hour on a regular non-ssd HDD.

It installs smoothly just like Windows 8.1 and even has the same wizard process during the first boot.

  

Yay, store apps. Exactly what I didn't want.

 
That bloody "Almost ready" was there for a frikken long time!

Unfortunately, there isn't any visible way of getting rid of that list of apps from the start menu.
I'll find a way by reworking my BreadCrumbKiller or SPASM programs.

To get rid of the live tiles from your Start menu, see here.

VirtualBox Guest additions

Majority of it works, but if you wanted the whole she-bang you can extract the drivers and manually install the video drivers.

• Go to Devices > "Insert Guest Additions CD image"
• Then open up command prompt in your VM.
• Type:

cd /d D:

# If x64

VBoxWindowsAdditions-amd64 /extract /D=C:\Drivers

# If x86

VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86 /extract /D=C:\Drivers

• Wait for it to finish.

• Open up Device Manager and find the "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter".
• Right click it and select "Update driver software"
• Browse my computer for driver software
• Click Browse
• Select C:\Drivers\
• Next
• Done!