Nobody is such a computer expert that they have the answer to every problem memorized. Typically, experts learn the basics of computers and then rely on Internet searches and technical resources to find the information they need.
The goal of this chapter is to teach you the basics of finding help for any problem that might arise within Windows by using different forms of support: professional support, online help, information on the Internet, and online forums. This chapter also shows you how to connect to remote computers using Remote Assistance and how to record a problem so you can show someone else exactly what’s happening.
This book also provides some troubleshooting assistance in Chapter 23, and in Part VI. However, there’s also an entire Inside Out book dedicated to the topic: Troubleshooting Windows 8 Inside Out (Microsoft Press, 2012).
For the first time, Windows 8.1 comes with 90 days of free premier phone support. If you run into a problem with your new computer, you can get free help at http://answerdesk.com or you can call the Microsoft Answer Desk at 800-MICROSOFT (800-632-7676).
After your first 90 days, you might still have free support available from your computer manufacturer. Therefore, if you have a Dell computer, you should contact Dell support. If you have an HP computer, you should contact HP support.
Support never lasts indefinitely. Therefore, when you contact your hardware manufacturer, it’s possible that your warranty will have expired. Typically, the manufacturer will still help you, but they’ll charge a fee. When you purchase your computer, the manufacturer often offers an extended support contract (for a fee). If you regularly need help, that fee might be worthwhile.
If you are not eligible for free support, you can hire computer support from a wide variety of companies. Microsoft Answer Desk, available at http://www.answerdesk.com, is an option. You can also schedule an appointment for in-person help at a Microsoft Store (if there is one in your area). Visit http://content.microsoftstore.com/Home.aspx to schedule an appointment.
An Internet search for “computer support” returns dozens of different businesses willing to help you with your computer problems for a fee. Often, however, you can find the answers to your problems for free using the Internet. The sections that follow describe these free support options.
Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 apps are designed to be easy enough to use that you don’t need help. Online Help is still available, though. You might be accustomed to pressing F1 to get help. That won’t work from the Windows 8.1 Start screen or from most apps designed for Windows 8.1. This makes sense, because Windows 8.1 is designed to be used without a keyboard. However, pressing F1 for help will still work in many desktop apps.
Instead, to get help at the Start screen or within an app, open the Settings charm and then click Help. Not all apps offer help, however. As shown in Figure 8-1, the Help system slides in from the right while your app remains open. Simply click the topic you’re interested in, or click your app to return to it. Many of the topics link to webpages on the Internet, so you might need Internet access to read them.
Opening Help from the Start screen also provides a link for learning the basics of Windows 8.1.
Help isn’t as important as it used to be. In the past, users needed to study the Help system to learn how to use an app. Today, apps are designed to be intuitive. When users want to learn general information about a product, they tend to purchase a book (such as this one). When users need help performing a specific task, most of them prefer to search the Internet. For more complex tasks, you might even search YouTube—there’s a large community of people, including the author of this book, who publish how-to videos.
Accessories you buy for your computer might be made by a different company than the one that manufactured your computer. Apps are made by yet another company. So, who should you contact for support about any particular problem?
First, a bit of background about Windows architecture. There are four basic layers, from top to bottom:
Apps
Windows
Drivers
Hardware
As a general rule, each layer communicates only with the layer above or below it. So, apps never communicate directly with hardware. If you want to print from an app, the app sends a message to Windows, Windows sends a message to the printer driver, and the printer driver communicates with the hardware printer.
If you have a problem printing from an app, it could be a problem with the app, Windows, the driver, or the hardware. Who should you call? Your first step should be to isolate the problem to a single layer. To isolate a problem, change the scenario and see whether the problem still exists.
To isolate the printer problem, you could:
Attempt to print from the same app to a different printer. If this works, you know the problem is specific to the printer or its driver, and you can contact the hardware manufacturer because the manufacturer is responsible for both.
Attempt to print from a different app to the same printer. If this works, you know Windows, the printer, and the driver are working, and you can contact the app developer.
Attempt to print from the same app to the same printer but from a different computer. If this works, the problem is specific to the computer, which could mean a hardware problem, a software configuration error, or a problem with software versions.
Some problems are more difficult to isolate. If you can’t isolate a problem, start by searching the Internet for help. Then, post a message in a support forum. Finally, contact technical support.
For better or worse, you’re probably not the first person to have any specific problem. Odds are very good that someone else had the problem and posted a message about it. There’s even a good chance that they found the solution to their problem, and that solution will work for you, too.
Here’s a good process for finding webpages related to your problem. If at any time you find no useful results, it’s probably time to post your own question.
Search the Internet for your exact problem, enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. For example, if the Computer Management console crashes with an error message, you might search for “Microsoft Management Console has stopped working.”
If the results are related to different problems, make your search more specific. For example, you might search for “Computer Management” “Microsoft Management Console has stopped working.”
If you still have too many results, try narrowing the scope of your search to people discussing the problem on Internet forums. Google allows you to do this by selecting Discussions from the left side of the search results.
If the problem is related to Windows (as opposed to an app), use these same techniques to search Microsoft Support, available at http://support.microsoft.com. Microsoft Support includes Microsoft’s massive public knowledge base of technical information and answers from Microsoft communities. When Microsoft discovers a bug or other technical issue, they often create a TechNet article that describes the issue and suggests a workaround.
The Internet community has a bad reputation for responding to sincerity with sarcasm and hostility, and that reputation isn’t completely undeserved. However, there’s a massive population of generous and knowledgeable people willing to do their best to help complete strangers with problems.
Before you ask for help, make sure you have done your best to find an answer to your problem:
Restart your computer and any hardware devices related to the problem.
Install all important updates from Windows Update.
Install any updates available from the app developer or hardware vendor.
Examine online Help, if it’s available.
Search the web for your error message.
Check the app developer or hardware vendor’s website for troubleshooting instructions.
Now you’re ready to find a help forum. You want to find the forum most closely related to the problem you’re experiencing. If you can’t print from any app on your computer, you should browse the printer manufacturer’s website for a support forum. If you’re having a problem with an app, find the app developer’s website and visit their forum. If you’re having a problem with Windows, visit the Windows Community (see Figure 8-2) at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/community. Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and even Microsoft full-time employees often help answer questions.
You’re almost ready to post. Before you do, make one last search for your problem using the forum’s search engine. Internet search engines don’t always return the latest messages, so you might find a recent message related to your problem.
Some websites have forums for different types of issues. For example, the Windows Community has separate forums for Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and Windows XP. Find the forum that best suits your question, and create a new message.
You want to provide people all the information they might need to diagnose your problem and provide a recommendation. At a minimum, provide:
A detailed description of the problem. Specify the exact steps you follow to reproduce the problem. For example, you might say, “When I try to print from any app, I get the error message, ‘Could not connect to printer.’”
An overview of the troubleshooting you’ve already done and what the results were. For example, you might say, “I installed the latest drivers from the hardware manufacturer. I rebooted my computer and my printer and tried connecting the printer to a different Windows 8.1 computer, but the problem continues. When I connect the printer to a Windows 7 computer, it works properly.”
The version of Windows that you’re using, including the service pack, if any. Mention that you’ve installed every important update from Windows Update. For example, you might say, “I’m running Windows 8.1 with all available updates.”
If it’s an app problem, the full name of the app, and the version if you can find it. For example, you might say, “I’m running the Photos app version 1.2.”
If it’s a hardware problem, the make and model of the device and how it is connected to your computer. For example, you might say, “My printer is the Brother MFC-J825DW, and I connect to it with a USB cable.”
If it’s a performance problem, provide your computer’s specifications. For example, you might say, “I’m using a Dell XPS 13.”
With your message crafted, you need to wait anywhere from several hours to several days for a reply. You might not get a reply at all; if you have a problem nobody has experienced before, no one on the forum will know how to solve it.
Note
Finding help online Watch the video at http://aka.ms/WinIO/help.
Here are a few etiquette tips to follow:
Post one message. If you don’t get any replies in two days, you can post in a different forum.
Be responsive. If someone writes back with questions, do your best to answer them promptly.
Follow up. If you solve your problem, write a reply describing exactly how you solved it. Others with the same issue will benefit from your experience.
Be polite. The people helping you are volunteers and are not paid for their work. They deserve a BIG thank you!
Relax. The problem feels urgent to you, and other people want to help, but they are volunteers, and your problem isn’t an emergency to them. Don’t say things like, “URGENT: NEED HELP!!!” If you really need a response within minutes, contact professional technical support.
Return the favor. Browse the forum and see whether other people are having problems you can solve. If you have skills that aren’t related to computers, there are forums where people need your skills. Help them out, and you help to keep the best part of the Internet alive.
With Remote Assistance, someone can connect to your computer across the local network or the Internet and share your desktop with you. This way, you can easily show them what’s happening and they can try to fix it. Of course, since you’re reading this book, it’s more likely that you’ll be the one providing the assistance.
Remote Assistance is enabled by default. If you’re security conscious, this might sound scary, as if anyone could connect to your computer. It’s not that easy; before anyone connects to your computer, they need an invitation, and the invitations are cryptographically protected. Of course, if you don’t plan to use Remote Assistance, you should disable it, because reducing the attack surface is always a useful way to improve security.
To enable or disable incoming Remote Assistance invitations, use the Remote tab of the System Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 8-3. You can open this dialog box by searching Settings for Assistance, and then clicking Allow Remote Assistance Invitations To Be Sent From This Computer.
If you want other people to be able to view your computer but not control it, click Advanced, and then clear the Allow This Computer To Be Controlled Remotely option. You don’t need to enable or disable Remote Assistance for outgoing connections, which you would use to help someone else; you can always accept a Remote Assistance invitation.
To create a Remote Assistance invitation (which you can use to help someone or get help), search Settings for Assistance, and then click Invite Someone To Connect To Your PC And Help You, Or Offer To Help Someone Else. This opens the Windows Remote Assistance wizard, shown in Figure 8-4.
The wizard is self-explanatory, with one exception: Easy Connect. Easy Connect allows you to find and connect to a computer anywhere on the Internet by typing the password Remote Assistance provides you (as shown in Figure 8-5) into the Remote Assistance window. Easy Connect requires both computers to be running either Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Try Easy Connect; if it doesn’t work, send the invitation another way.
If you send the invitation as a file or an email attachment instead of using Easy Connect, the recipient simply needs to double-click the .msrcIncident file from a computer running Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Then, the recipient needs to type the password shown in the Remote Assistance window. You need to confirm that they are allowed to connect to your computer.
No matter which method you use to connect, you need to leave the Windows Remote Assistance window open. Closing it prevents the expert from connecting to your computer. That’s also a bit comforting, because protecting your computer is as easy as closing the window. By default, invitations expire after six hours.
Within the Remote Assistance session, the expert will be able to view your computer and see anything you do on it. If your computer has a high screen resolution (most common on large monitors) or multiple displays, the expert will see the entire screen scaled down to the size of their Remote Assistance window. This is in contrast to Remote Desktop, which automatically changes the screen resolution.
To allow the expert to control the computer, the expert must click the Request Control button, and then you must confirm that they can have control. Until you confirm that the expert can control your computer, the expert can only view your screen. If you want to hide your screen temporarily, click the Pause button.
By clicking the Settings button on your computer, you can configure the bandwidth usage, as shown in Figure 8-6. The default setting of Low is ideal for helping someone, but you can increase the bandwidth to show the background and visual effects.
You can use Steps Recorder to record a problem that’s occurring. Then, you can send the recording to an expert so that they can better see the problem.
To use Steps Recorder, follow these steps:
From the Start screen, search for Problem Steps.
In the left pane, click Record Steps To Reproduce A Problem.
Windows 8.1 displays the desktop and opens the Steps Recorder app.
Click Start Record.
Switch back to the Start screen, open the app causing the problem, and repeat the steps that demonstrate the problem.
Switch back to the desktop (for example, by clicking Desktop on the Start screen or by pressing Windows+D). In the Steps Recorder app, click Stop Recording.
Steps Recorder displays your recording, as shown in Figure 8-7.
Click Save or Email, and send the recording to the support staff.
Steps Recorder is also a useful way to create step-by-step instructions for friends who need help.