nondaj
When my event log has a Red warning I worry.
When there is no warning I worry that it is hiding something ! !
A red warning "Ftdisk, data may have been lost" caused me to take action,
my daughter now has to follow strict rules before plugging her IPOD into the USB ports of my computer.
Many people never bother to look at the event logs.
Some of them live one day at a time and one BSOD at a time ! !
I like to have a look once a week to be sure of "normality"
This is how I investigate an error :-
A SYSTEM error at 20/01/2009 18:43:32
I look for interesting events at related times in the other logs.
The Application log shows at 18:43:22 MsiInstaller caused event 11724
I right click and find that PerfectDisk 2008 was removed successfully.
I now remember that it was upgraded, and obviously the old version was removed without Windows prior approval ! !
Windows surprised me at how good a job it did,
it noticed something that might have been bad (e.g. a virus deleting anti-virus) and it put an "error" in the log.
(I miss the old days of Windows 9x when warnings went on the screen, but I guess M.$ tech support could not keep up with all the phone calls when customers knew how bad their computers were ! !)
Had I not found a valid cause, I would have investigated further as follows :-
1. Select the error; sshot-39
2. Double click to see its properties; sshot-40
3. Click on the link
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. which was above the hand. This launches the Help and Support center.
I do not know if I have had too many security patches, or if it always works so badly for everyone, but for me the Help and Support Center does not know why I woke it up.
Once it is awake I click on the link a second time, and then Help and Support knows what is wrong and it gives me sshot-41
As you can see from the slide bar, it is like an iceberg, only the top 10% is visible. By sliding down there is a lot more information, and if that is not enough it can link you to M.$ Knowledge Databases.
The first stage is to investigate a problem as above.
That will often show unusual but reasonable causes (e.g. user actions such as upgrading software).
I think if you have many errors and warnings upon start-up then it would be prudent to investigate.
You might find an error due to the Internet Connection not being available when ESET wants a virus signature update - something changed on my internet and for several days no updates arrived, I had to reconfigure ESET to update once per hour instead of only at start-up.
If an error really worries you and you want advice, sshot-40 has 3 buttons centre right,
just click the bottom one and all the information is placed in your clipboard ready for Ctrl' V to paste into a forum post for help.
If I.E.7 is essential for school, so be it.
You should never have any problem having Firefox or Opera as preferred alternatives for normal non-school work.
You may be able to use all 3 browsers simultaneously - but look out for BSOD's ! !
Best wishes
Alan
[attachment deleted by admin]
