San Francisco Chronicle (Online)

Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone next year, ending AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the smartphone in the U.S., two people familiar with the plans said.

The device will be available to customers in January, according to the people, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public. Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, and Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, declined to comment.

The iPhone, which has been the sole domain of rival AT&T in the U.S. since June 2007, will give Verizon a boost in its competition for smartphone customers, UBS AG analyst John Hodulik said in an interview. Verizon customers, who numbered 92.8 million at the end of the first quarter, may buy 3 million iPhones a quarter, he estimates.

“Apple is going to dramatically increase the number of devices it sells in the U.S. when exclusivity at AT&T ends,” said Hodulik, who is based in New York and rates Verizon shares “neutral.” “It’s hard to ignore the quality issues that AT&T has faced.”

Verizon Wireless, which is building a high-speed fourth- generation network, plans to unveil several devices that will run on the new technology in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam has said.

IPhone Gains

Verizon Communications Inc., which co-owns the wireless company with Vodafone Group Plc, slid 9 cents to $28.62 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4 p.m. AT&T fell 49 cents to $24.46. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped $12.13 to $256.17 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Peter Thonis, a spokesman for Verizon Communications, and Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, declined to comment. Tenille Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Research in Motion Ltd., didn’t return a call seeking comment.

The iPhone has helped AT&T add subscribers even as the U.S. mobile-phone market nears saturation. There are enough wireless devices for more than nine out of 10 people, according to the CTIA wireless industry association.

In the first three months of this year, about a third of AT&T’s iPhone activations came from customers who were new to the carrier. Without those 900,000 new subscribers, the company may have posted a loss in contract customers that quarter, analysts said.

Still, Dallas-based AT&T has battled customer complaints about its wireless service, especially in New York and San Francisco, and dedicated an extra $2 billion to upgrading its network this year.

BlackBerry, Android

For Apple, a partnership with Basking Ridge, New Jersey- based Verizon Wireless is a victory over rivals such as RIM and Motorola Inc., whose smartphones are currently promoted by the carrier.

“For Apple it means a larger addressable market,” said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. “It’s also good news for Apple in that it will spread the load on the wireless data networks, which will be good for their customers.”

Motorola, which makes Droid phones that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system, fell 27 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $6.80 on the New York Stock Exchange. Google dropped $17.82, or 3.8 percent, to $454.26 on the Nasdaq. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, declined $3.22, or 6.1 percent, to $49.75.

Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones since the phone’s introduction in 2007. The latest version, iPhone 4, sold more than 1.7 million units in the first three days after its June 24 debut, a record for the product. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said the company didn’t have enough supply to meet demand. Many stores, including retailer Best Buy Co., sold out.

A release at Verizon in the first quarter will help Apple’s sales in the U.S. grow to at least 15 million units next year from 11 million in 2010, Barclays Capital analysts said in a note today. The company’s suppliers have been ramping up production of components for a phone on Verizon’s CDMA network, according to the research report.

After easy transfer restore your outlook profiles/accounts are not there. I had reinstalled office 2007 on the new system and restored using easy transfer from old to new computer settings. I was under the impression profiles would be moving. In addition to moving the .pst files you also have to restore the following registry setting. The best way of doing it is to export the setting. On the old computer open regedit.Start-run-type regedit-enter. Then look for this setting: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles. Copy it to a thumbdrive or some kind of portable device then go on the new computer and double click on the reg setting to restore it on the new computer.

You need to ensure you reinstall office first, do not start outlook until after you have migrated your .pst files and the registry setting above.

I worked an issue in which several machines had the volume icon missing from the bottom right. I followed the steps to restore the sndvol32.exe from a working XP machine into a broken one and it worked.

Windows XP – Volume icon missing

I have XP Home,and for some reason,my volume control icon is missing from my taskbar. When I opened “Sounds and Audio Device Properties”,and checked the “place volume icon in the taskbar”,I get a pop-up announcing that “Windows cannot display the volume control on the taskbar because the volume control program has not been installed.To install,use add/remove programs in the control panel”
Where do I find this volume control program to install it?
This may all be my fault,as I have been trying to remove some freeware that stubbornly refuses to be unistalled,and also,I have been trying to modify the Startup menu so Thunderbird (which I recently installed to replace Outlook Express) would launch at Windows startup,but all that is another story.
Anyway,I sorely miss the volume control icon!

Before I sent this,I found what I thought was the solution in Windows Help and Support files:

Volume Icon Is Not Displayed in the Notification Area, and You Receive an Error Message When You Try to Add It
View products that this article applies to.
Article ID : 319095
Last Review : January 23, 2004
Revision : 1.0
This article was previously published under Q319095
SYMPTOMS
On a Windows XP-based computer, you may experience one or both of the following behaviors: • The Volume icon is no longer displayed in the notification area at the far right of the taskbar.
• When you try to add the volume control icon to the notification area (in the Sounds and Audio Devices utility in Control Panel, click to select the Place volume icon in the taskbar check box on the Volume tab), you receive the following error message:
Windows cannot display the volume control on the taskbar because the Volume Control program has not been installed. To install it use Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
As a result, you cannot start the Volume Control program and adjust the volume and sound level settings of your computer.
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if the Sndvol32.exe file is damaged or missing.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, extract a new copy of Sndvol32.exe from the Windows XP compact disc to the system_root\System32 folder on your computer’s hard disk. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into your computer’s CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. Press and hold down the SHIFT key as you insert the CD-ROM to prevent it from starting automatically.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.
4. Type the following lines at the command prompt, pressing ENTER after each line, where CD-ROM drive is the drive letter of the computer’s CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that contains the Windows XP CD-ROM, and system_root is the path and folder name where the Windows system files are located (generally C:\Windows):
CD-ROM drive:
cd i386
expand sndvol32.ex_ system_root\system32\sndvol32.exe

Note that there is a space between “ex_” and “system_root” in this command.

For example, if your computer’s CD-ROM drive is drive E, and the folder that contains the Windows system files is C:\Windows, type the following lines at the command prompt (pressing ENTER after each line):
e:
cd i386
expand sndvol32.ex_ c:\windows\system32\sndvol32.exe
5. Type exit to quit the command prompt.
6. Verify that you can start Volume Control and that the Volume icon is displayed in the notification area (if you selected this option).

MORE INFORMATION
By default, the Volume icon is not displayed in the notification area in Windows XP.

For additional information about how to display the volume control icon in the notification area, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
279435 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279435/EN-US/) HOW TO: Display the Volume Icon in the Notification Area in Windows
For additional information about icons that are displayed in the notification area, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
310578 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310578/EN-US/) Windows System Tray Icons
For additional information about how to troubleshoot sound problems, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
307918 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307918/EN-US/) HOW TO: Resources for Troubleshooting Sound Problems in Windows XP

I had issues with a Windows 7 machine having a blank screen with no icons or desktop items loaded after login onto to the system. I tried several things which none of them worked.

I deleted the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell key rebooted and the key recreated itself. The problem went away and it as not come back.