Windows 8 Bible

Troubleshooting Tips

One important approach will help ensure your troubleshooting success: You must be methodical.

Don’t start changing program settings, Windows settings, or registry settings; deleting files; and taking other actions without an understanding of what you’re doing. Just as important, don’t make lots of changes at once. Instead, make a single change, see if it fixes the problem, and then try the next if needed.

Here are some key pieces of advice:

• When searching the web for answers, be as precise as possible. Include as many keywords as possible that are related to the issue. If you are receiving an error message, enclose the exact error message in quotes in your search.
• Ask yourself what has changed. Did you add something new? Did you change a setting? Knowing when the problem started occurring and what changes happened right before it began could give you a great head start on finding the solution.
• Make one change at a time, testing the problem after each change to see if it is resolved.
• Keep notes. As you make a change or test something, make a note of it so you’ll know what you changed and when.
• Don’t be surprised to find that what appears to be a single problem is actually multiple problems.
• Use restore points to restore your system to the state it was in just prior to when the problem started occurring.
• Make backups of your critical data before you make any drastic changes.
• Make backup copies of the registry key in which you are about to make changes before ...