Hello lovely people 🙂

In this installment of out computer repairs blog we will talk about problem steps recording to help troubleshoot Windows 7 machines. If you have ever been in the position of being asked to help sort out a computer problem, or diagnose a problem, based solely on their description, you know how difficult that can be. While you can try looking over their shoulder, or, using a remote session, it is not always a practical solution. Windows 7 comes with a great utility called Problem Steps Recorder which records the user’s actions and allows you, as a computer repairs DIY guru, to be able to find an answer a lot faster.

Type in “psr.exe” (no quotes) into the Start menu Search box to start up the Problem Steps Recorder

Or, you can create a shortcut for it on their desktop using the path “C:WindowsSystem32psr.exe”. This means when a user calls for support they have a handy icon they can use to launch it.

The interface is nothing fancy; it has very basic controls which make it very easy to use. Click on the Start Record button and go through the steps to recreate where the problem is.

While it is recording you will notice a small red dot image briefly by the pointer when new shots are taken. When finished the recording just click on Stop Record and then choose location to save the output file.

The output is saved as a zipped MHTML web archive file that can be viewed in Internet Explorer. Just have the user network share the file or email it to you.

You will be able to navigate through the recording and see what the user was doing. It creates a file that allows you to scroll through each screen shot, view the shots as a slide show, or review tech details.

Here is an example of Slide Show view in Internet Explorer.

Towards the bottom of the document more additional technical information is shown.

One thing to note is that during the recording session you can hit the *Add Comment* button and highlight an area of the screen and leave a comment or question.

This is a nice addition to Windows 7 and it allows you to troubleshoot any issues. I hope this works for you. Good luck with all you computer repairs efforts.

Over and out

MobileGeekette