Troubleshooting 101

Inevitably, the only time you'll ever have a problem with your computer system is the exact moment when it's not convenient. Or more specifically, the moment when any delay would be severely detrimental to the continuation of your job or life. Fortunately, Windows XP has benefited from the failures of its preceding OSes and as a result is more stable than any other Microsoft OS.

That is not to say that Windows XP will never experience a failure. However, the frequency of such failures is greatly reduced and in many cases Windows XP can self-heal.

In this chapter, I discuss many of the fault-tolerant features of Windows XP, along with specific tools you can employ to resolve problems.

Windows XP is chock full of helpful troubleshooting information. In many locations throughout the user experience, you'll see a button labeled "Troubleshooter." This button is most common when viewing the Properties dialog box of a device. This button launches a troubleshooting wizard that walks you through common resolution techniques for the problems you are encountering. You also can locate troubleshooting links within the Help and Support Center. Just search on a topic and look for the link to launch the troubleshooting wizard.

While I'm discussing device Properties dialog boxes, I should also mention that you can gain access to these (among a few others, such as Computer Management for drives and Phone and Modem options for modems) through the Device Manager. Within the Device Manager you can look for devices with problems by looking for the yellow exclamation point or the red stop sign over the device's icon. See Chapter 30's section titled "System: Device Manager."