Is there really an art to it? in a way, yes there is... it involves being patient and thinking logically.

The other aspect to it of course it not being afraid to try in the first place. I think the biggest fear which stops people even trying to fix a problem, is the fear of doing something wrong, breaking it further or making it worse.

There is an easy answer to that, if you don't take the risk you'll never get anywhere. There are precautions you can take along the way, almost everything in Windows can be backed up before you make a change. It just takes a bit of sensible thinking.

If you need to delete files, rename them instead, it has the same affect most of the time. Make a note of any settings you change, take copies (backups) of important data before editing or deleting etc... sensible precautions such as these can give you a safety blanket if you make a mistake.

The art to good problem solving is the ability to think logically. Computers are very logical, in most cases things happen for a reason, and never because they just feel like it. As with most things in life, there is an 'action' and 'reaction', 'cause' and 'effect', in other words nothing just 'happens'.

In the case of a computer problem, if something no longer works or displays an error the cause is often close at hand, if you look in the right places. But what are the right places? a lot of problem solving is a process of elimination, eliminate what is not the cause and you will invariably end up with a solution.

When you talk about an 'art to problem solving', what is actually meant is that if something doesn't work, it's a case of knowing how to trace the problem back to a cause. In doing this, there are hurdles beginners have to overcome in understanding how a system works.

The first hurdle is the understanding that an application is not one 'unit'. In actual fact an application is made up of many smaller units (components, or files on the hard disk). This is the same for Windows, Linux and Macs, after all an operating systems is an application as well. It's definition I suppose might be an application which runs other applications.

All applications depend on their components, the operating system depends on it's components. Problems can occur when one of those components (or files) changes through something being installed. Identifying those problem components is the art, and there are plenty of tools and methods to find the troublesome components.

The next hurdle is understanding how to interpret errors, or crashes. Consider what we've already learnt about errors in components. If a components crashes it might display an error, that crash is then reciprocated to it's dependent parent application or component, that crashes perhaps displaying another error. In this case, two errors have occurred, the first error is the important one, however the second error might help identify where the first error originated from.

Let me give an example... First Error... hole in the roof. Second Error, wet floor. Why concentrate on fixing the Second Error, because fixing the First Error will automatically fix the Second Error. However the Second Error does help, as it identifies that the problem is to do with something wet, which could be a tap, bath or hole in the roof.

Crash errors in most cases are a result of a piece of programming code which has resulted in a value it cannot cope with. Sometimes it's impossible for a programmer to anticipate every scenario that a component or application might encounter, an error like this is referred to an an 'unhandled' error. With this in mind, understanding what a crash error is and what it looks like, will help you identify when an error has been 'handled'.

This takes me onto the next point, what is a handled error? When you type in an email address incorrectly, or wrong web site address. An email will be returned to you if the address is not valid, a web browser will display a message saying the site is unavailable. These are still errors, but 'handled' correctly by the software as the programmers had anticipated this occurring. This same logic can be applied to security problems, driver problems, installation problems, connectivity problems etc.

Then there is the hardware side of things. I have concentrated mainly on the software side up till now, however the same applies to hardware. Software is the 'interface' to the hardware, it controls the hardware to a degree. When software goes wrong it's not usually because there is a fault with the hardware, but you can never rule it out with some problems.

People's phobia about the hardware of a PC is unfounded these days. It's made up of components just like a car is, you'll never need to know how a gearbox works. If a gearbox breaks then you will never need to take it apart and fix it, only replace it. You'll know it's the gearbox because you won't be able to drive the car like you could before. For the same reason people will never need to know how a computer works, only the purpose of the components. Like a car needs an engine; a seat; a steering wheel, computers need a motherboard; hard disk; keyboard. If you know what a hard disk does, you're on the right track.

Knowing these facts is a good start to learning the art of problem solving... learning more and more about how it all works will directly help in establishing where problems are coming from and how to avoid them in the future. The more you learn about the art, the more knowledge you will pickup about what does what, and how.

Of course we're missing one valuable point... the real definition of 'problem' in computing terms... something which does not do as expected. In most cases the problem is that you can't do something, and the solution is to set it up so it works correctly. Correct configuration might be the simple answer there.

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