There's a reason why we often say
that our very first troubleshooting
step would be to turn the device off and back on again.
The reason we often lead with that reset function
is that it often resolves the issues
we're trying to troubleshoot.
The reason this works is that there
may be software that is causing problems or using
more resources than we expect.
There might be a software bug inside
of router code or an access points firmware,
and restarting that device will resolve the problem.
Or maybe that an application is in some mode where
it's using more resources than normally expected,
and restarting the application resolves that problem as well.
There might even be an application that
has a memory leak that is slowly eating away
at the available memory inside of your system,
and restarting your computer now makes
that memory available to other applications on the computer.
This is why it's very common when we sit down
at a computer to troubleshoot that we'll bring up the Task
Manager.
At the very bottom of the Task Manager
it will tell you how long this system has been up and running.
And if it's been up and running for a number of days,
we might want to start with a reboot
before doing any other troubleshooting.
In every operating system, there are
applications that run behind the scenes
that normally you would never see.
In Windows, we refer to these as services.
But just because an application is running in the background,
doesn't mean that it won't have any problems.
Occasionally, you'll have a service that
fails or has some type of software problem,
and you'll need to restart that service
to get everything running again.
Since you're already in Task Manager to check on the uptime,
this is a perfect place to slide over to the Services tab
to see all of the services running on the system.
And you can easily right mouse click on any of these services,
such as the Print Spooler service, and choose to stop,
restart, or modify any of the details associated
with that service.
But of course, restarting a service or a system
doesn't necessarily solve every problem.
One way to get the application back into working order
may require you to uninstall the application
and reinstall it on your system.
And Windows provide you with a number of different options
that might install some or all of that application.
To see what options might be available for fixing
an application on your system, you
can choose Settings, apps, and app
and features to be able to find the repair, reset,
and uninstall options.
You can also modify some of these application settings
from the control panel under the programs and features applet.
And if you do choose to uninstall the application,
you can then, of course, reinstall the app
to see if that resolves any of the issues you're having.
Repairing an application performs
a number of different functions that
leave the application and the application data intact.
This might be installing missing files for the application,
replacing any files that might be corrupted,
or fixing problems with shortcuts, registry, entries,
or drivers.
If you choose the option to reset the app,
then you're going to remove all of the application data,
including any of your user data.
This is very similar to performing a factory reset
on a computer or performing an original installation
of that software.
And if you'd like to remove everything
with that application in order to perform a new install later,
you could choose the uninstall option.
If we've reset our computer and performed an application repair
and we're still having the problem,
we might want to verify the minimum requirements
for this application.
Normally, a publisher will provide you
with how much memory, storage space, and CPU is required just
to be able to run the bare minimum for this app.
If you're not sure what those bare minimums would be,
you should check with the manufacturer
to see what their official recommendation is
for running this app.
The manufacturer will provide you
with minimums that are very common
such as the CPU speed or total amount of memory.
But you might also have requirements
for video options, particular device drivers,
or you may need to install runtime libraries
before installing the application.
For example, the manufacturer might tell you
that you need a minimum of 8 gigabytes of memory
free to be able to run this application.
And when you look at the system, you
may find that the installed amount of memory
is 8 gigabytes, which means that you're already
using some of that memory for the operating system,
leaving you a total of 4.8 gigabytes for the application,
which of course, is well under the manufacturer's minimum of 8
gigabytes free.
If you'd like a summary of the hardware configuration,
software environment, and other settings on a system,
you can run the System Information app
and be able to view all of those at a glance.
We've already looked at a number of resources
that were available in Task Manager
to understand how much memory, RAM, network,
and other resources were in use.
And Task Manager is a great place
to be able to view this on a per app basis.
But Task Manager, of course, is designed
to show you this resource utilization in real time.
If you need a longer term view of resource utilization,
you might want to choose Performance Monitor
so that you can track this information over hours or even
days.
Once you know what the minimum requirements are
from the manufacturer, you can then look at these resources
to see if we have enough memory storage space
and other resources that are required to run that app.
And if you don't have enough resources,
you may need to upgrade your memory, your storage drive,
or in some cases, the CPU of your system.
If you're low on storage space, Windows
includes a disk cleanup utility that
can go through your downloaded program
files, temporary internet files, and other locations
on your operating system to remove any files that you
may no longer need.
This may be able to free up enough storage space
to resolve any problems you might be
having with your application.
If you feel as if the problem with your application
or operating system may be associated with the core
operating system files, you can have
your Windows perform a check.
This would be the SFC utility, that
stands for System File Checker.
And SFC will scan all of your important system files
to verify that these are the original versions that
were installed in your OS.
If any of these files are missing, corrupted,
or have been changed, SFC will prompt
you to replace those files with the original and working
versions.
This can be a useful utility if you know that your system had
been infected with malware, and you're not sure
if the malware made any changes to the underlying OS.
If you're having a problem with Windows booting,
you may be able to resolve the issue
by running a startup repair.
You can launch this process from inside of Windows
from settings, system, and recovery,
or you can boot from the original installation media
and choose the option to repair Windows.
This is the screen you would get if you
booted from the original installation media
for Windows 11.
It looks very similar to the screens
you would see for Windows 10.
In this case, I will choose Next,
you'll get an option to install now.
But instead of installing Windows,
we will choose the option in the bottom
left to repair your computer.
And if you choose that option, you'll
have the option to continue, turn off your PC, use a device,
or troubleshoot.
And in this case, we would like to use the option
to troubleshoot.
Inside of that option is reset this PC.
That will allow you to completely reset
the Windows installation.
Or you can choose the advanced options.
And in the case of a startup repair,
we would like to choose the advanced option setting.
Because underneath the advanced options at the very top
is the selection for startup repair.
If you choose that option, Windows
will list all of the different Windows operating systems
that may be installed on this device.
In this case, I only have a single version
that is Windows 11.
And if I choose that, it will diagnose the settings
for starting up Windows make any necessary changes
and restart the computer.
One very useful troubleshooting tool inside of Windows
is the ability to go back in time
and install a previous configuration on your existing
Windows desktop.
This is referred to as Windows Restore,
and you'll find it under the system properties
under System, about, and system protection.
Inside of that window you'll see an option for system
restore where you can undo system
changes by reverting your computer
to a previous restore point.
This process doesn't modify any of your personal files.
You're going back in time and changing the configuration
of Windows but not going back in time
and changing any of your personal files.
To start this process, we will choose the option for system
restore.
This will tell us that it can restore and help
fix problems that might be making your computer run slowly
or stop responding.
We'll click the Next option.
It then gives us a list of all of the restore points that
are available on your system.
This might be a number of different restore points going
back over a number of weeks or even months.
In this case, I have a single restore point
that I could choose.
I'll select that restore point and choose Next,
and Windows will tell us that we will go back in time
and restore this from this date and this time
to this particular drive.
And if all of this looks correct,
you can click the Finish option.
Your Windows will go back to that previous configuration
and restart the system.
Windows is an enormous operating system,
and when something goes wrong, it could be anywhere
within that OS.
So instead of trying to pinpoint exactly what the root
cause might be, we might decide that a faster
way to resolve this issue is to delete everything
in the operating system and load a new version of the OS.
In many cases, this is a much faster process
than trying to find a very small needle in the very
large haystack of Windows OS.
Many organizations will have images
ready to go for this type of problem
where they can simply delete everything on the computer,
restore from an image, and that system is back up and running
in a matter of minutes.
But if this is a system at home or you
don't have an image for this system,
you might want to try the built in recovery options
inside of Windows.
From Windows 10 you can reach these
under Settings, update and security, and recovery.
In Windows 11 it's almost identical.
It's under Settings, system, and recovery.
Inside of the screen is an option
to reset this PC, where you can either
choose to reset the Windows operating system
but leave all of your personal files intact,
or do completely remove everything on the system
and reinstall a brand new version of Windows.
You might also recall us saying that it's
important to keep your operating system at the latest version.
There is a built in update function
of Windows called Windows Update that
is able to install operating system updates and security
patches automatically.
You also have a lot of control over this process
from inside the Windows Update.
You can look at the advanced options such as when
the active hours are on your system
so that Windows won't try to reboot your system when you're
using it.
And there are other updates settings in here
that can limit downloading of large files, which
is especially important if you're
on an internet link with limited bandwidth
or you're paying for the bandwidth that you use.
This Windows Update function is designed to keep your operating
system up to date.
But of course, you also have to keep your applications up
to date, and you may need to contact
the developer of the application directly
to see if you are running the latest version.
In most cases, these updates are provided behind the scenes
and are updated automatically without any user intervention.
If you'd like to see what Windows
has done with the update functions,
there is an update history.
You can find that Windows 10 under Settings, Update
and Security, and Windows Update.
Or inside Windows 11, it's under Settings and Windows Update.
You can see you get a comprehensive view
of exactly what updates have been installed on a system,
and what date those updates were added to your computer.
You can drill down into the update
to see additional options.
And if you think this update may be causing problems,
you could choose the option to uninstall the update.
This will bring up a list of the updates from your control panel
under Programs and Features and installed updates,
and then you can right mouse click on any of these updates
and choose the option to uninstall.
If you use Active Directory at work, then then
you know every user has a profile associated
with their username.
And if they log in to multiple systems,
that profile will be downloaded and applied to that system.
So no matter where they log in, they
have exactly the same configuration
and the same desktop.
Unfortunately though, these profiles
can sometimes be damaged or corrupted.
And when you try to log into Windows you'll get a message
that says the user profile service failed to log
on, or the user profile cannot be loaded.
And you may notice when you log in that the screen is not
the same as your normal desktop, or there might be files missing
from the desktop itself.
To resolve this problem, we need to delete the bad profile.
Once that's deleted from your system,
the user can log back in.
Windows will recognize that a profile no longer exists
for this user, and it will create a new profile
that now will be operational.
This is a multi-step process.
So let's go through the entire process from the beginning
where we delete the profile.
And then we'll look at the process
for creating the new profile.
To be able to delete the damaged or corrupted profile,
we need to log in with domain administrator rights.
This will allow us to rename the user's folder on their system.
This will allow us to save important files
that they may already have within their user folder.
We may be able to recover those later.
At that point, we need to back up the users registry,
and you can see the registry key is here
under HKLM/SOFTWARE/Mi crosoft/WindowsN
T/CurrentVersion/ProfileList.
To be able to back this up, we right
mouse click on that particular section of the registry
and choose the option to export.
Once we know that we have a backup of that registry,
we can then delete the existing registry,
which effectively clears the profile from this system.
At that point, we can restart the computer
and ask the user to log in.
Once the user logs in, Windows recognizes
that a profile doesn't currently exist
and it will build a new profile under the existing user's name
folder.
This will create an empty profile.
But there may be files in other important documents
that the user would like from their original profile.
If that's the case, we'll need to log out and log back
in as the domain administrator so that we
can copy over any files that we backed up
that the user might need.
What you don't want to do during this step
is copy over the old profile onto the new profile.
That's because the corrupted information may still
be within the backup of the original profile.
We should only copy files that the user might need
and nothing else from their old profile.
Once you've copied those files over, the process is done,
you can log out as the administrator,
have the user log back in, and now
they have a new working profile that they can use.