How to troubleshoot a Windows meltdown

After publishing last Monday's column, which detailed my most recent trip to Windows hell, I received an email from Susan Bradley, who besides her regular job as a CPA is the designated network administrator for her firm. That means she's responsible for about 20 Windows XP machines. In her spare time, she answers user questions as a tech support volunteer in the Microsoft MVP program.

Susan's email was short and to the point: "Your three mistakes are: 1. Loading up a Norton product; 2. Not checking out the Event Viewer and then going to EventID.Net; 3. Buying XP Home. I refuse to run any Norton product on any Windows product."

Over the years I have purposely tried not to learn too much about computers. I am not a programmer. I understand how to set up networks, but only on an advanced-user level. I have never studied the guts of the Windows Registry. Why? Because I've wanted to remain close to what "real" users face when using their computers.

Still, I am always looking for better ways to do things, so I asked Susan to tell me in more detail how she would have solved the problem of a computer that froze without warning or apparent cause.

Here's what she told me:

"First and foremost, with computers on the NT/2k/XP code base, they have a means of communicating to the administrator/user what is wrong with them. Most of the time, I can narrow down my problem with this one communication tool: Event Viewer. This is an application that is monitoring what is up (or down) with your system."

To find Event Viewer in Windows 2000, go to: Start/Settings/Control Panel. For XP go to: Start/Control Panel. Susan typically changes to Classic View for the Control Panel in XP so she can find what she's looking for.

"Next, look for an icon called Admin Tools," Susan instructed. "Click on it and then open Event Viewer. Inside are three folders labelled: Application, Security, and System. We're going to concentrate on the Application and System folders."