ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS with computers in
general (and Microsoft Windows does not enjoy any immunity here) is
that historically things always break at the least appropriate time and
they always take far too long to repair.
When Microsoft moved Windows to a new operating system kernel—the
core code of the operating system (OS)—with Windows Vista, it based it
upon the stable and reliable one that it had been using for Windows
Server since the days of NT. The unreliable, buggy, and crash-prone
kernel from Windows 98, ME, and XP was jettisoned forever, and from that
point forward, Windows became a much more stable and robust product.
With Windows 7, Microsoft released an incredibly crash-resistant and stable OS and pretty much banished the much maligned Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) shown in Figure 1 to the annals of history. Indeed, so rare is a BSOD today, in Windows 8, it’s become the Blue Unhappy Emoticon of Death. I’m sure in the coming years this new screen will pick up many colorful names (well…the color blue, anyway).
The simple fact remains, though, that Microsoft Windows is the most
open and supported computing platform on the planet. People can count
how many apps (applications) exist in the Android app store for Google’s
open tablet and smartphone OS, but nobody in the world is brave enough
to count how many programs, apps, peripherals and pieces of internal
(and external) hardware exist for Windows.
It is this openness that is the biggest strength of Windows, and
conversely, its biggest weakness. The problem Microsoft faces is keeping
an OS that already contains billions of lines of computer code stable
and reliable while maintaining compatibility with hardware and software
that won’t usually have gone through any kind of testing and
certification process, and that can interact with other hardware and
software in unpredictable ways.
So, when Windows does fail, the problem is how do you get it back up
and running just as it was before (but without the bugs and problems,
obviously), as quickly as possible?
This is the single question that enthusiasts and IT professionals alike have asked me the most since I wrote Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out back in 2010. As a result, I decided that this would be the perfect place to start this new edition.
What Can Often Go Wrong with Windows
As I just mentioned in the introduction, the most common
problems that arise in Windows are caused by the software that you
install and the hardware that you plug into your computer. If you ran
Windows completely on its own, with no external hardware and no
additional software, or perhaps only using official Microsoft software
such as its Office suite, then you’d possibly never encounter a single
problem (Windows Update issues notwithstanding).
It is the third-party ecosystem and especially Windows Update that causes the most problems in Windows, and even Windows 8 on ARM
processors won’t be completely immune to this. And this is despite most
tablets not supporting external hardware and the OS only supporting new
apps. ARM Processors are new to Windows computers. Until recently, they
had been used primarily for smartphones and tablets running Apple’s iOS
and Google’s Android OS. ARM processors are incompatible with the Intel
chips found in desktop PCs, which is why a separate version of Windows 8
has been released for them.
The three main areas where you might experience problems are the following:
-
Startup problems
-
Security problems
-
Configuration problems
I will discuss how you can quickly fix each of these in a short while.
The first question to ask yourself when you encounter a problem with
Windows 8 is “What’s changed?” Something unique and different will
always have happened to cause the problem. If a computer was perfectly
stable every day for the last three weeks doing the same job in the same
way, it’s not going to fail just for that. Something will always have changed and the first job is to determine and diagnose what this change is.
This leads to several questions:
-
Have you just performed a Windows Update? (This should always be the first question.)
-
Have you installed new hardware?
-
Have you installed new software?
-
Have you updated the driver for a hardware device?
-
Have you updated any of your software?
-
Are you using two software applications at the same time in a way that you don’t normally do?
-
Are you trying to perform several complex jobs at the same time?
-
Has there been an interruption to the power supply recently?
-
Have you been eating or drinking at the computer?
-
Has anybody else used your computer?
If we continue going down the list, we eventually get to “Did you
remember to plug it in?”, “Is there a power outage in your
neighborhood?”, and “Are you confusing your PC with the microwave after a
particularly heavy night out?”
You might be amazed at just how often this fixes problems, but let’s have a look at why this is. The simple reason behind why a restart
fixes many problems is that every single problem with a computer or
with Windows 8 is caused by a human being. For something to go wrong,
someone first has to be doing something on the computer. If you leave a
computer on its own all the time, then, assuming that there’s no poorly
written software or hardware drivers running in the background, it is
very unlikely something will go wrong.
When you restart a computer, whatever it is that you were doing
before, you’re now no longer doing. Any software that you were running
will probably have been closed; any hardware you were using will
probably now be inactive; and you are effectively starting with a clean
slate.
Sometimes, however, something will happen that will leave an impact
on the computer, your hardware drivers, software, or Windows 8 itself,
and after you restart, something will go wrong and Windows will either
misbehave when you try to use it or, in the worst case, it will fail to
load at all. This is a very common complaint to IT departments, so it’s a good place to start.
Fixing Common Startup Problems
Since\ the introduction of Startup Repair in Windows Vista, the OS can sometimes do a reasonable job of fixing itself. If you can’t start your copy of Windows 8, try restarting it a few times; Startup Repair should automatically run.
Startup Repair is a utility that sits on a hidden system partition that is created when Windows
8 is first installed. It will run a series of checks on the components
that start the operating system and reset everything to its default
configuration.
Startup Repair is by no means perfect, but if somebody calls you to
say that her computer won’t start, ask her how many times she has tried.
Usually you need to attempt to start Windows three times before Startup
Repair will run.
If this doesn’t happen, you will need to enter the Startup Repair options manually. You access these from the boot menu. To start this, press F8 at startup, after the BIOS or UEFI screen.
When the boot menu opens, select the Troubleshoot option from the first screen, as shown in Figure 2.
The Troubleshoot window opens and presents two very interesting new features in Windows 8, Refresh Your PC and Reset Your PC (see Figure 3).
You should only use the latter option if you want to wipe all your user
accounts, programs, apps, hardware drivers, and files off the computer.
You might want to do this, for instance, if you’re selling it or giving
it to a friend.
The Refresh Your PC option is the new way to restore a system image
of Windows, complete with all your current settings, files, and apps
intact. This isn’t to be confused with a System Image, which still
exists as an option.
The main difference between System Image and Refresh Your PC is that the image required to refresh a copy of Windows 8 already exists without any user involvement.
What it will do, as I said, is restore an image of the OS while keeping your current apps, settings, and files intact. What it won’t do is restore any of your desktop software, which will be wiped.
One of the best things about Refresh
Your PC is that it’s so easy, even an end user can do it. By this I
mean that if you work at a support desk and someone calls to say he can
get to the Start screen or desktop, but Windows 8 is malfunctioning, you
can talk him through no more than six simple key presses that will kick
the process off. This saves valuable time visiting the user to repair
it yourself.
Sometimes, though, you don’t want to have to wait 20 minutes or more
for an image to be restored, and just using System Restore will be
enough, especially if the problem has occurred after a software or
hardware install, a manual driver update, or a Windows Update.
After you click Refresh Your PC, choose the Advanced Options, which opens the menu shown in Figure 4. Here, you will see System Restore as well as the System Image Recovery option, by which you can restore from a System Recovery Disc, just as you can with Windows 7.
If the boot system itself is corrupt, however, you will need to manually rebuild it from the command prompt here.
