Saturday, June 13, 2009
Windows 7 Problem Steps Recorder
I lead what I think is an interesting and varied life. I am involved in a wide range of activities both professionally and socially, and I rarely find myself bored or lacking something to do. This is not to say that my life is all beer and skittles either. There are aspects of my professional life, in particular, that I would love to minimize or eradicate all together.
As I have mentioned before, much of my working life involves developing business applications, variably as a coder, an analyst or a project leader. One thing that irks me is when a user reports an error. It irks me for two reasons. Firstly, I'm disappointed that someone found an error in an application I am responsible for. I know, there is no such thing as an application without bugs, but I can't help it - I'm still disappointed.
The second reason is because the user almost always (well, 99.999999% of the time) reports very little in the way of useful information about the problem. "The program won't work." "There was an error message." "It's broken." "Something isn't right." Now I know it's the nature of things to go to as little effort as possible to get a result. We teach it at our business schools across the country. It called being efficient. Obviously these user comments provide exactly zero information about what will be required to help them. I spend far too much time reproducing and identifying errors from the tiniest scrap of evidence. This is not a part of my life that I call interesting.
However, my life is about to change for the better.
Microsoft has introduced a wonderful little app in Windows 7 called the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR). No longer will help desks need to decipher a short cryptic message about some vague problem with some application or other.
PSR provides the user with a simple tool that records what they are doing when the error occurs, and then sends it to their support professional. PSR is easy to use, has an intuitive interface, and allows you to start, pause and stop whenever you need to. It creates a zip file ready for emailing, and the delivered product not only shows all the screen shots that the user saw, but also includes a text description of the user's journey to the problem.
Unlike previous Windows troubleshooting wizards, this one works for applications other than those that form part of the O/S. Any program running on the computer can make use of this applet. Now that's true support.
You can check it out at this URL. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/dd320286.aspx
As I have mentioned before, much of my working life involves developing business applications, variably as a coder, an analyst or a project leader. One thing that irks me is when a user reports an error. It irks me for two reasons. Firstly, I'm disappointed that someone found an error in an application I am responsible for. I know, there is no such thing as an application without bugs, but I can't help it - I'm still disappointed.
The second reason is because the user almost always (well, 99.999999% of the time) reports very little in the way of useful information about the problem. "The program won't work." "There was an error message." "It's broken." "Something isn't right." Now I know it's the nature of things to go to as little effort as possible to get a result. We teach it at our business schools across the country. It called being efficient. Obviously these user comments provide exactly zero information about what will be required to help them. I spend far too much time reproducing and identifying errors from the tiniest scrap of evidence. This is not a part of my life that I call interesting.
However, my life is about to change for the better.
Microsoft has introduced a wonderful little app in Windows 7 called the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR). No longer will help desks need to decipher a short cryptic message about some vague problem with some application or other.
PSR provides the user with a simple tool that records what they are doing when the error occurs, and then sends it to their support professional. PSR is easy to use, has an intuitive interface, and allows you to start, pause and stop whenever you need to. It creates a zip file ready for emailing, and the delivered product not only shows all the screen shots that the user saw, but also includes a text description of the user's journey to the problem.
Unlike previous Windows troubleshooting wizards, this one works for applications other than those that form part of the O/S. Any program running on the computer can make use of this applet. Now that's true support.
You can check it out at this URL. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/dd320286.aspx
Labels: Development, Support, Windows 7
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