First Steps, Windows Management Console

• Is your computer running slow? 
• is it crashing a lot and you dont know why? 
• issues with drivers not installing?
• pesky memory stick not showing a drive letter?

There are hundreds of things you can diagnose easy if you follow the steps I will provide below valid for XP, Vista, and 7...

Getting the error and more information about it.

click start > right click computer > left click manage

this then opens up Computer Management, in here you can look at the system "Windows Logs" in event viewer Device Manager and Disk  Managment.

in the screen above you can see I am looking in the system logs on my computer, I can see that an error occured with my CD rom, often disk errors appear here so you can hopefully catch the disk before it totally fails for example (if you have a noisy disk in the computer, or your computer has become slow it is well worth checking the event logs just in case.) a failing disk would often look like the screen below.

the "Application Logs" section is where errors for applications such as Internet explorer, word or games crashing are kept. the error often give detail of the faulting module and the fault address. in the screen below you can see IE crashed with a 0x0000000 often a crash like this with a 0x0000000 address will be profile related, therefore creating a new account to log in to and test would be a great starting point.

if you have an issue you need help with then leave as many details in the comments section, provide screens if possible.