Windows 7 A very helpful Discovery..

[Radenight]

Hello gang!

One of the best and brightest members of this wonderful forum recently brought to my attention a very interesting discovery within Windows 7.. This post is entirely Reghakr's words.. Any and all credit for this discovery goes to him. I'm posting this for him only because the option to post a 'sticky' thread wasn't available to him.. We both felt this should be made a sticky so that new and older members can always find it without hassle..

I happened to run across this program while performing a 'Search'.

It's called "Problem Steps Recorder"

I tried it out and it captures every single mouse click and change that you make, it actually highlights certain areas of text as well. You can e-mail, annotate, etc. Clicking on help brought up a detailed help file on the program.

You can automatically capture the steps you take on a computer, including a text description of where you clicked and a picture of the screen during each click.

It outputs a .zip file on the desktop which extracts a .mht file which opens in your browser. This contains all the captured images a poster may take to provide a 'recording' of the exact steps the poster took to reproduce an error. These files can than be reviewed by the regular members of the forum.

I believe this could be a huge asset for those of us who are trying to provide a resolution to the poster's problem

You can access it by going to Start > Run, and type 'psr'

Thanks go out to Radenight for helping me with this new discovery

Kudos to Reghakr for finding this great little app!! Excellent work my friend..

 

[whoosh]

Oh wow reghakr that is sure a great discovery and ty Radenight for the info
So simply yet I may never have found it but for rehakr and all the hours of work he puts in and Radenight for the info

This forum sure rocks for help and advice and timely discoveries

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Just run the problem steps recorder and it is fantastic . Can see it will be invaluable for those with problems

 

[aman_high]

But I read it already When I was reading all the new about what's new in Win 7

but At that time it was great discovery for me as it will be for people who discover it now.

But sadly very less people use it.While Posting their problems if they Use it ,really would help...

 

[stueycaster]

That is a really good thing to know about. Thanks a lot reghakr and Radenight. Now if I have a problem I'll know a great way to provide details that will help someone to help me.

I've said it before but it bears repeating. I think the people who hang out in forums and help people out with problems are the best people in the world. Half of everything I know about computers came from forums. When I first started coming to them my computer was full of spyware and I didn't even know it. I thought it was natural for it to run slowly and programs to not run right. Now I almost never have problems with my system. I owe it all to the wonderful people in forums. Thank you.

 

[SIW2]

Hi stueycaster,

That's a nice response. Glad you are enjoying your pc more now.

 

[adduncan]

nice find, keep up the great discoveries

 

[tonightslastsong]

Turns out, this is part of the Control Panel.

It's pretty obscure, so I hope they make it a little more front-page on the Troubleshooting throughout Windows. If you go to the Control Panel, and under "System and Security", click on the sub-link "Find and fix problems". You then have to use the sidebar to click on the "Get help from a friend" option. This opens up the invitation creator for Remote Assistance, but there is a section along the bottom which which provides a link to this new PSR.

Just through I'd provide a real how-to for finding where they've actually stuck the program. I hope they put it somewhere easier to find in the future, for all of those non-technical people that this program is destined to help one day.

 

[stueycaster]

Turns out, this is part of the Control Panel.

It's pretty obscure, so I hope they make it a little more front-page on the Troubleshooting throughout Windows. If you go to the Control Panel, and under "System and Security", click on the sub-link "Find and fix problems". You then have to use the sidebar to click on the "Get help from a friend" option. This opens up the invitation creator for Remote Assistance, but there is a section along the bottom which which provides a link to this new PSR.

Just through I'd provide a real how-to for finding where they've actually stuck the program. I hope they put it somewhere easier to find in the future, for all of those non-technical people that this program is destined to help one day.

Awesome! Another good thing to know. Ya gotta love forums.

 

[doublea]

I found this about 3 days after I installed the beta, I foudn it when I was doring a totally unreleated search also, but thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I messed around with it.

 

[GregW17]

Ah, this'll make bug reporting so much easier, no more army of screenshots, just a simple zip file is all you need. (except for the forums where you can't put attachments...)

 

[siimsdita]

Fantastic

This will not only help us to trouble shoot, but I think we could use it as a tutorial as well to direct people on how to setup email etc.

Fantastic you guys rawk

 

[rbridgeman]

There's another built-in app that I've used recently in order to point out what apps are slowing down the startup/shutdown and gives you solutions - ie. turning off the conflicting app. I had one app that slowed down the startup by 637 seconds (built-in battery backup app was conflicting with my APC software). I can't seem to remember the app name but thought it was pretty cool. It automatically popped up without having to open any administrative program.

 

[JackHobbs]

Great tip! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Talderon]

This will not only help us to trouble shoot, but I think we could use it as a tutorial as well to direct people on how to setup email etc.

Fantastic you guys rawk

I have been using this for Windows 7 Tutorials for my customers for a bit now and LOVE it!

Also, I have an instructional tutorial on now to use the PSR that ALL of my customers get and are required to watch before they get their computers. I have had MANY tickets submitted and customers automatically attach a PSR zip file because they know I will ask for one and I have been able to help torubleshoot and resolve so many issues quickly due to this!

AWESOME FIND!!

 

[pyr0kinetic]

amazing find, great little app, can't believe MS didn't really make it findable.

thanks a heap guys

 

[KevinSpy]

Run

Where is the Run on the Start button? I see "All programs", etc. and the Search but not "Run."

 

[Talderon]

Where is the Run on the Start button? I see "All programs", etc. and the Search but not "Run."

I normally hit the Windows Key+R to get the RUN prompt, however, you can set it to show the RUN command on the Start Menu by editing the start menu properties.

 

[jmarinov]

10x

Good job, thank you for the info, it is really helpful!!!

KevinSpy


Run
Where is the Run on the Start button? I see \\"All programs\\", etc. and the Search but not \\"Run.\\"

You can use the "Search" also as "Run". In this case if you just write "psr" the search result will be "psr.exe", just click it and that`s it. Many users make changes to the Start Menu and later can`t find things... be careful

 

[Tecnobyte]

Buen aporte

Gracias por el post, es muy útil...


Informáticos Madrid Link Removed - Invalid URL

 

[jmarinov]

rbridgeman, can you remember the app?

There's another built-in app that I've used recently in order to point out what apps are slowing down the startup/shutdown and gives you solutions - ie. turning off the conflicting app. I had one app that slowed down the startup by 637 seconds (built-in battery backup app was conflicting with my APC software). I can't seem to remember the app name but thought it was pretty cool. It automatically popped up without having to open any administrative program.

Can you try to find the name? It can be very useful.
Thanks!