Thread: Windows 7's Problem Steps Recorder captures the stages leading to errors.

Encountering a PC problem is distressing enough but attempting to describe the issue to someone else, a friend or professional helper offering technical support, can compound the upset. To provide useful guidance the helper needs a clear picture of what's happening on screen and a coherent description of the steps that lead to the occurrence of a particular problem. However, for the novice PC user, accurately describing each and every stage that directs them down a digital dead end can be as stressful as the problem itself. Windows 7 users, though, can call on the new Problem Steps Recorder to ease the pain. It will record everything a technical support person needs to help diagnose a problem. We recommend getting familiar with Problem Steps Recorder before problems arise. Here's how.

Windows 7 - this Workshop is not suitable for users of Windows XP or Vista. To launch Problem Steps Recorder, click Start, type psr into the Search box and hit Enter. Alternatively, if you like doing things the long way, click Start, then Control Panel, Find and fix problems, Get help from a friend and, finally, Problem Steps Recorder. The Problem Steps Recorder application is designed to be unobtrusive, being little more than a thin strip of icons.

Problem Steps Recorder captures all steps carried out by the user: this includes screenshots of applications as they're running, along with any information that may be displayed on screen. Problem Steps Recorder puts all this information into a file that can be emailed to or otherwise viewed by someone offering technical support. So, if the process contains steps or information that you would like to keep private, Problem Steps Recorder may not be the way forward. With that warning out of the way, click the Start Record button.

Even though the application's window is just the thin strip described previously, it may get in the way while attempting to recreate a problem. So, either drag and drop it to an unimportant part ofthe Desktop or click its Minimize to make it disappear to the Windows Taskbar.

The PC trouble that has led to you to be usmg Problem Steps Recorder. We will emulate a simple problem by launching Internet Explorer, entering a web address that contains a small but crucial error and then hitting Enter. As our screenshot shows, Internet Explorer returns a 'cannot display page' message - the problem we want to demonstrate to our technical support contact.

Minimised it in Step 3, first click its icon on the Taskbar). When the Save As dialogue box appears, choose a suitable location for the file that Problem Steps Recorder is about to create (the Windows Desktop is a good bet), type a name in the File name box and then click Save.

Turned our series of actions and screens into a compressed (Zip) file that can be emailedtoatechnicalsupporthelper.To do thIS now, fight-click the ZiP file, choose Send to from the pop-up menu and then click Mail recipient. The Zip file in fact contains a page that can be viewed in any web browser. To view the contents for yourself, double-click the Zip file and then double-click the fi-Ie inside (called 'Problem ... ') to open it in your preferred web browser. And that's it, at least for the basics. However, there are a few more aspects of Problem Steps Recorder that are worth exploring, preferably before a problem strikes.

Application's interface to which you would like to draw attention during recording, click the Add Comment button on the Problem Steps Recorder icon strip. The whole screen will become grey and the mouse pointer will change to a crosshair: left-click and drag to highlight .=J any rectangular area of the display. This highlighting is optional, incidentally. If you want, get straight on with typing a comment.

Note that if you need to halt the recording at any point, Problem Steps Recorder has a Pause Record button: click it and further actions will be ignored until Resume Record is clicked.

It may be necessary sometimes to run programs as an administrator. If this is the case, Problem Steps Recorder will pop up this dialogue box - just click Yes. Alternatively, head off this possibility before beginning by clicking the down-pointing arrow to the far-right of the Problem Steps Recorder icon strip and selecting Run as administrator from the dropdown menu.

Possible to tweak the way Problem Steps Recorder captures your actions. By default, it collects a maximum of25 screenshots. If the steps leading up to a problem exceed this, then the first captured screenshot will be ditched to make room. To have Problem Steps Recorder capture more screens, type a larger figure in the box provided (though do note that this may result in a larger Zip file, which will take longer to email). Alternatively, select the No radio button to switch off the recording of screenshots.