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If it was so, and if it were so, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.
-- Lewis Carroll
A long time ago, somebody proved mathematically that it was impossible to make any reasonably complex software program problem-free. As the number of variables increase, as the interactions of subroutines and objects become more complex, and as the underlying logic of a program grows beyond the ability of a single person to grasp all at once, errors inevitably creep into the code. Given Windows 7's status as possibly the most complex software ever created, the bad news is that there are certainly problems lurking in the weeds. However, the good news is that the overwhelming majority of these problems are extremely obscure and appear only under the rarest circumstances.
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About the book:
This chapter excerpt on
(download PDF) is taken from the book . This book covers key topics for solutions providers, including customizing Windows 7; monitoring, tuning and optimizing W securing Windows 7; and using its power tools. Author Paul McFedries introduces new styles and techniques to troubleshoot Windows 7 and automate administration.
This doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a glitch-free computing experience -- far from it. Third-party programs and devices cause the majority of computer woes, either because they have inherent problems themselves or because they don't get along well with Windows 7. Using software, devices, and device drivers designed for Windows 7 can help tremendously, as can the maintenance program I outlined in Chapter 7, &Maintaining Your Windows 7 System.& But computer problems, like the proverbial death and taxes, are certainties in life, so you need to know how to troubleshoot and resolve the problems that will inevitably come your way. In this chapter, I help you do just that by showing you my favorite techniques for determining problem sources, and by taking you through all of Windows 7's recovery tools.
The Origins of the Word Bug
Software glitches are traditionally called bugs, although many developers shun the term because it comes with too much negative baggage these days. Microsoft, for example, prefers the euphemistic term issues. There's a popular and appealing tale of how this sense of the word bug came about. As the story goes, in 1947 an early computer pioneer named Grace Hopper was working on a system called the Mark II. While investigating a problem, she found a moth among the machine's vacuum tubes, so from then on glitches were called bugs. A great story, to be sure, but this tale was not the source of the &computer glitch& sense of &bug.& In fact, engineers had already been referring to mechanical defects as &bugs& for at least 60 years before Ms. Hopper's discovery. As proof, the Oxford English Dictionary offers the following quotation from an 1889 edition of the Pall Mall Gazette:
&Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph -- an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.&
Troubleshooting Strategies: Determining the Source of a Problem
One of the ongoing mysteries that all Windows users experience at one time or another is what might be called the &now you see it, now you don't& problem. This is a glitch that plagues you for a while and then mysteriously vanishes without any intervention on your part. (This also tends to occur when you ask a nearby user or someone from the IT department to look at the problem. Like the automotive problem that goes away when you take the car to a mechanic, computer problems will often resolve themselves as soon as a knowledgeable user sits down at the keyboard.) When this happens, most people just shake their heads and resume working, grateful to no longer have to deal with the problem.
Unfortunately, most computer ills aren't resolved so easily. For these more intractable problems, your first order of business is to track down the source of the glitch. This is, at best, a black art, but it can be done if you take a systematic approach. Over the years, I've found that the best approach is to ask a series of questions designed to gather the required information or to narrow down what might be the culprit. The next few sections take you through these questions.
Did You Get an Error Message?
Unfortunately, most computer error messages are obscure and do little to help you resolve a problem directly. However, error codes and error text can help you down the road, either by giving you something to search for in an online database (see &Troubleshooting Using Online Resources,& later in this chapter) or by providing information to a tech support person. Therefore, you should always write down the full text of any error message that appears.
If the error message is lengthy and you can still use other programs on your computer, don't bother writing down the full message. Instead, while the message is displayed, press Print Screen to place an image of the current screen on the clipboard. Then open Paint or some other graphics program, paste the screen into a new image, and save the image. If you think you'll be sending the image via email to a tech support employee or someone else that can help with the problem, consider saving the image as a monochrome or 16-color bitmap or, if possible, a JPEG file, to keep the image size small.
If the error message appears before Windows 7 starts, but you don't have time to write it down, press the Pause Break key to pause the startup. After you record the error, press Ctrl+Pause Break to resume the startup.
Does an Error or Warning Appear in the Event Viewer Logs?
Launch the Event Viewer, open the Windows Logs branch, and then examine the Application and System logs. (Refer to Chapter 7 for more information on the Event Viewer.) In particular, look in the Level column for Error or Warning events. If you see any, double-click each one to read the event description. Figure 21.1 shows an example.
FIGURE 21.1 In the Event Viewer, look for Error and Warning events in the Application and System logs.
See &Reviewing Event Viewer Logs,& p. 160.
Does an Error Appear in System Information?
Select Start, type msinfo32, and press Enter to launch the System Information utility. In the Hardware Resources branch, check the Conflicts/Sharing sub-branch for device conflicts. Also, see whether the ComponentsProblem Devices category lists any devices, as shown in Figure 21.2.
FIGURE 21.2 You can use the System Information utility to look for device conflicts and problems.
Did You Recently Edit the Registry?
Improper Registry modifications can cause all kinds of mischief. If the problem occurred after editing the Registry, try restoring the changed key or setting. Ideally, if you exported a backup of the offending key, you should import the backup. I showed you how to back up the Registry in Chapter 12, &Tweaking the Windows 7 Registry.&
See &Keeping the Registry Safe,& p. 233.
Did You Recently Change Any Windows Settings?
If the problem started after you changed your Windows configuration, try reversing the change. Even something as seemingly innocent as activating a screensaver can cause problems, so don't rule anything out. If you've made a number of recent changes and you're not sure about everything you did, or if it would take too long to reverse all the changes individually, use System Restore to revert your system to the most recent checkpoint before you made the changes. See &Recovering Using System Restore,& later in this chapter.
Did Windows 7 &Spontaneously& Reboot?
When certain errors occur, Windows 7 will reboot itself. This apparently random behavior is actually built in to the system in the event of a system failure (also called a stop error or a blue screen of death -- BSOD). By default, Windows 7 writes an error event to the system log, dumps the contents of memory into a file, and then reboots the system. So, if your system reboots, check the Event Viewer to see what happened.
You can control how Windows 7 handles system failures by following these steps:
1. Select Start, type systempropertiesadvanced, and press Enter to open the System Properties dialog box with the Advanced tab displayed.
2. In the Startup and Recovery group, click Settings. Figure 21.3 shows the Startup and Recovery dialog box that appears.
FIGURE 21.3 Use the Startup and Recovery dialog box to configure how Windows 7 handles system failures.
3. Configure how Windows 7 handles system failures using the following controls in the System Failure group:
Write an Event to the System Log -- Leave this check box activated to have the system failure recorded in the system log. This enables you to view the event in the Event Viewer.
Automatically Restart -- This is the option that, when activated, causes your system to reboot when a stop error occurs. Deactivate this check box if you want to avoid the reboot. This is useful if an error message appears briefly before Windows 7 reboots. By disabling the automatic restart, you give yourself time to read and write down the error message.
If the BSOD problem occurs during startup, your computer winds up in an endless loop: You reboot, the problem occurs, the BSOD appears, and then your computer reboots. Unfortunately, the BSOD appears only fleetingly, so you never have enough time to read (much less record) the error message. If this happens, display the Windows Boot Manager menu (refer to Chapter 4, Customizing Startup and Shutdown&), press F8 to display the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then select the Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure item. This tells Windows 7 not to reboot after the BSOD appears, so you can then write down the error message and, hopefully, successfully troubleshoot the problem.
Write Debugging Information -- This list determines what information Windows 7 saves to disk (in the folder specified in the text box below the list) when a system failure occurs. This information -- it's called a memory dump -- contains data that can help a tech support employee determine the cause of the problem. You have four choices:
None -- No debugging information is written.
Small Memory Dump (128 KB) -- This option writes the minimum amount of useful information that could be used to identify what caused the stop error. This 128KB file includes the stop error number and its description, the list of running device drivers, and the processor state.
Kernel Memory Dump -- This option writes the contents of the kernel memory to the disk. (The kernel is the Windows 7 component that manages low-level functions for processor-related activities such as scheduling and dispatching threads, handling interrupts and exceptions, and synchronizing multiple processors.) This dump includes memory allocated to the kernel, the hardware abstraction layer, and the drivers and programs used by the kernel. Unallocated memory and memory allocated to user programs are not included in the dump. This information is the most useful for troubleshooting, so I recommend using this option.
Complete Memory Dump -- This option writes the entire contents of RAM to the disk.
Windows 7 first writes the debugging information to the paging file -- Pagefile.sys in the root folder of the %SystemDrive%. When you restart the computer, Windows 7 then transfers the information to the dump file. Therefore, you must have a large enough paging file to handle the memory dump. This is particularly true for the Complete Memory Dump option, which requires the paging file to be as large as the physical RAM, plus 1 megabyte. The file size of the Kernel Memory Dump is typically about a third of physical RAM, although it may be as large as 800MB. If the paging file isn't large enough to handle the dump, Windows 7 writes only as much information as can fit into the paging file. I showed you how to check and adjust the size of the paging file in Chapter 6, &Tuning Windows 7's Performance.&
See &Changing the Paging File's Location and Size,& p. 132.
Overwrite Any Existing File -- When this option is activated, Windows 7 overwrites any existing dump file with the new dump information. If you deactivate this check box, Windows 7 creates a new dump file with each system failure. Note that this option is enabled only for the Kernel Memory Dump and the Complete Memory Dump (which by default write to the same file: %SystemRoot%Memory.dmp).
4. Click OK in all the open dialog boxes to put the new settings into effect.
Did You Recently Change Any Application Settings?
If so, try reversing the change to see whether doing so solves the problem. If that doesn't help, here are three other things to try:
Check the developer's website to see whether an upgrade or patch is available.
Run the application's Repair option (if it has one), which is often useful for fixing corrupted or missing files. To see whether a program as a Repair option, select Start, type programs, and then click Programs and Features to display a list of your installed applications. Click the problematic application, and then look for a Repair item in the taskbar (see Figure 21.4).
Reinstall the program.
FIGURE 21.4 In the Programs and Features window, click the program and look for a Repair
option in the taskbar.
If a program freezes, you won't be able to shut it down using conventional methods. If you try, you might see a dialog box warning you that the program is not responding. If so, click End Now to force the program to close. If that doesn't work, right-click the taskbar, and then click Task Manager. When you display the Applications tab, you should see your stuck application listed, and the Status column will likely say Not responding. Click the program, and then click End Task.
Did You Recently Install a New Program?
About the author:
is the president of Logophilia Limited, a technical writing company, and has been writing computer books since 1991.&McFedries is the author or coauthor of&more than&60 books that have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.&He is also the proprietor of , a website described as &the word lover's guide to new words,& which tracks new words that become part of the English language.
If you suspect a new program is causing system instability, restart Windows 7 and try operating the system for a while without using the new program. (If the program has any components that load at startup, be sure to deactivate them, as I described in Chapter 4.) If the problem doesn't reoccur, the new program is likely the culprit. Try using the program without any other programs running.
See &Custom Startups Using the Boot Configuration Data,& p. 63.
You should also examine the program's readme file (if it has one) to look for known problems and possible workarounds. It's also a good idea to check for a Windows 7-compatible version of the program. Again, you can also try the program's Repair option or you can reinstall the program.
Similarly, if you recently upgraded an existing program, try uninstalling the upgrade.
One common cause of program errors is having one or more program files corrupted because of bad hard disk sectors. Before you reinstall a program, run a surface check on your hard disk to identify and block off bad sectors. I showed you how to do a hard disk surface scan in Chapter 7.
See &Checking Your Hard Disk for Errors,& p. 135.
When a program crashes, Windows 7 displays a dialog box asking if you want to see whether a solution to the problem is available. You can control the behavior of this prompt. See &Checking for Solutions to Problems,& later in this chapter.
Did You Recently Install a New Device?
If you recently installed a new device or if you recently updated an existing device driver, the new device or driver might be causing the problem. Check Device Manager to see whether there's a problem with the device. Follow my troubleshooting suggestions in Chapter 22, &Troubleshooting Devices.&
See &Troubleshooting Device Problems,& p. 472.
Did You Recently Install an Incompatible Device Driver?
As you see in Chapter 22, Windows 7 allows you to install drivers that aren't Windows 7 certified, but it also warns you that this is a bad idea. Incompatible drivers are one of the most common sources of system instability, so whenever possible, you should uninstall the driver and install one designed for Windows 7. If you can't uninstall the driver, Windows 7 automatically set a system restore point before it installed the driver, so you should use that to restore the system to its previous state. (See &Recovering Using System Restore,& later in this chapter.)
Did You Recently Apply an Update from Windows Update?
It's an unfortunate fact of life that occasionally updates designed to fix one problem end up causing another problem. Fortunately, Windows 7 offers a couple of solutions for problems caused by updates:
Select Start, type updates, and then click View Installed Updates. In the Installed Updates window, click the update you want to remove, and then click Uninstall.
Before you install an update from the Windows Update site, Windows 7 creates a system restore point -- usually named Install: Windows Update. If your system becomes unstable after installing the update, use System Restore to revert to the pre-update configuration.
If you have Windows 7 set up to perform automatic updating, you can keep tabs on the changes made to your system by select Start, type updates, and then click Windows Update. Click the View Update History link to see a list of the installed updates, which includes the update Name, Status (such as Successful), Type (such as Important or Optional), and Date Installed.
Troubleshooting and recovering from problems &
Printed with permission from Sams Publishing. Copyright 2009.
by Paul McFedries. For more information about this title and other similar books, please visit .
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