18 |^ |^ August 2019
Get information about your
hardware – including driver
info – via Device Manager.heartto
troubleshooting
problemsisnotabout
knowingthatproblemA
isfixedbysolutionB,but
ratherunderstanding
thetoolsandtechniquesyouneedto
findsolutionB.You’llnotonlyacquire
theknowledgerequiredtounderstand
whichWindowstoolswillbeofmostuse
toanyspecificissue,butyou’llalsolearn
howtoharnessthepowerofthewebto
trackdownstep-by-stepsolutionsand
remedies you can apply – or adapt – to
your own circumstances.Gather information
Step one involves diagnosing and
describing the problem in such a way
that you gain the information you need
to go hunting for a solution if one
doesn’t present itself. The best problems
to troubleshoot are those that can be
linked to a specific program, have an
obvious cause and come complete with
a detailed error message (including
error code and filename). If you’re lucky
enough to get one of these, note down
all pertinent details and skip to the
section on using the web.
Sadly, that’s not always possible – you
might get told that your program has
encountered a problem and had to
close, but nothing else is volunteered.
Your PC might freeze for no apparent
reason or throw up a blue screen error
before restarting. These all indicate an
underlying problem, but where do you
go to find out more information?
Windows records major events –includingwarningsanderrors– ina
series of logs. To access the relevant
ones, type ‘reliability’ into the Search
box and click ‘View reliability history’
to open the Reliability Monitor. You’ll
see a chart rating your PC for stability,
and providing a summary of failures
(apps, Windows and miscellaneous),
warnings and information. These
basically provide a list of key events
that have been recorded.
Make a note of the event name, then
click ‘View technical details’ to access
information –’ such as a program name,
exception code and type of error. Jot
this down. If nothing is forthcoming, try
widening your search to the entire log
by opening Event Viewer via the Quick
Access menu (press Win + X). Once it’s
loaded, expand the Critical, Error and
Warning sections to find log entries
whose time stamps coincide with the
problem you encountered.The art of web searching
Your obvious first port of call for a
solution is Microsoft Support (https://
support.microsoft.com) or thewebsiteoftheprogramorhardware
device that’s causing you grief. If this
yields nothing, expand your search
to Google.
When searching the web for a solution
to your problem, the key to finding
potential fixes is knowing what words to
include in your searches. Enter too many
search terms and you’ll get no results;
enter too few and you’ll find hundreds
of results, most of which won’t be
relevant to your particular problem.
Rather than wade through these
results, it makes sense to refine your
search to see if you can narrow down
the search results without missing out
on potentially useful sites. Try entering
words that are related to your problem:
error messages, program names, the
version number of Windows 10 such as
1809 or 1903, hardware – anything you
think is relevant. When entering
filenames or error codes, make sure
you enter them exactly as they
appeared on-screen – a frequent
mistake is to type the letter O instead
of the number 0 (zero).
Don’t assume the first search results
displayed are necessarily the most
relevant to your problem – be
prepared to scroll through a number
of pages clicking promising links
before deciding (if necessary) to
refine your search terms further.
If you’ve pared your keywords down
to the bare minimum in order to get a
meaningful number of hits, but are still
having no luck finding a solution,
considering adding other possible
relevant keywords to your search terms.
if your problem is sound-related, for
instance, including the name of your
audio device might help you target a
solution quicker. Use Device Manager or
Speccy (www.ccleaner.com/speccy) to
identify model names and drivers in
case it’s relevant, while program version
numbers can be gleaned from Settings
> Apps (click an entry to reveal its exact
version number).Troubleshoot problems
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Knowing what to
look for when
troubleshooting is
a crucial skill that
you can develop
over time.The Reliability History window helps pinpoint
underlying problems as well as more visible ones.