Troubleshooting Microsoft Windows Vista (5 Part Series) – Introduction
Computer troubleshooting is in many ways more art than science; it’s more of a marriage between your basic computer understanding and all the peculiarities of your specific environment. Truth be told, this series of articles actually possesses very little capability in terms of helping you troubleshoot your network. What it can do, however, is get you pointed in the right direction so that you have a better idea of the troubleshooting resources that are at your fingertips within Vista and mcitp training or mcts training.
Of course, there’s no way any computer article can possibly foresee every possible computer troubleshooting scenario. If you want to really know whether a particular troubleshooting approach will work, my best advice is to give it a try. It’s just a machine, after all, and you aren’t going to break it with a few clicks of the mouse.
OK, you might break it, but if you follow some of the advice laid out in this article, you shouldn’t be able to do anything that you can’t undo. Here, we focus mainly on some of the troubleshooting tools that Windows Vista places in the hands of the administrator. As always, the focus is mainly on what’s new: we will examine a new utility called Problem Reports and Solutions, and I’ll bet you don’t need to read much further to guess what the nature of that one is. Also, we’ll explore some tools that an administrator might already know from previous operating systems like the System Restore utility, and we’ll look at situations in which System Restore just might save the day.
In this 5-part series of articles, we will discuss the various tools available for troubleshooting within Windows Vista. As I’m sure you’re aware, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. If you’d like to get my entire book “Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide” by Brian Culp, Publisher: O’Reilly, ISBN-13: 978-0-59-652959-8 (or any of my 20+ other books and tutorials), you can pick it up at my website, https:://www.certkingdom.com or at most major book chains. In addition, I’m always happy to provide additional assistance for free (within reason, mind you. . . don’t go thinking this is some sort of a free ride). Visit me at my website and submit your questions to me. I’ll get back to you with an answer as soon as possible.
Up next: we start with a look at a troubleshooting task that is meant to prevent many problems from happening in the first place. It’s the Vista Automatic Updates, which Vista admins should absolutely use to enforce good preventive health.
Brian Culp, MCSE, MCT, is a recognized Microsoft expert who has been teaching and writing about Windows for many years. He is author/coauthor of: seven books including Windows XP Power Tools (Sybex) and Outlook 2003 Bible (Wiley); four MCSE study Guides (McGraw-Hill); and numerous tutorials for the Virtual Training Company. Mr. Culp provides instruction on various administration and networking topics throughout the United States, but can always be reached via his website, https:://www.certkingdom.com