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The Windows 7 Software Development Kit (SDK), a free download from http://download.microsoft.com, includes the Windows Troubleshooting Pack Designer in the \Bin\TSPDesigner folder . You can use the Windows Troubleshooting Pack Designer to create your own troubleshooting packs to troubleshoot common problems not covered by the built-in troubleshooting packs . Troubleshooting packs are also a convenient way to maintain computers; by scheduling them to run in an automated way, you can use troubleshooting packs to detect and resolve common problems without user intervention . Users can run stand-alone troubleshooting packs packaged as .diagcab files . The .diagcab file format is a specialized archive that contains each of the troubleshooting pack scripts . When packaged as a .diagcab file, troubleshooting packs can be distributed using Group Policy preferences, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (either during or after deployment), or non-Microsoft software distribution tools . For external customers, you could post the .diagcab files to a Web site and direct your users to open the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) when they experience a problem .

You can run a troubleshooting pack across the network on a remote computer, which can allow you to diagnose common problems quickly and possibly solve them without walking the user through the troubleshooting process . The following Windows PowerShell commands, when run on a Windows 7 computer (either locally or remotely using Invoke-Command or the *-PSession cmdlets), will run the built-in Windows Aero troubleshooting pack, automatically attempt to resolve any problems, and store the results to the C:\DiagResult folder .

Import-Module TroubleshootingPack $aero = Get-TroubleshootingPack $env:SystemRoot\Diagnostics\System\Aero Invoke-TroubleshootingPack -Pack $aero -Result C:\DiagResult -unattend

You could also use this technique in a script to run a troubleshooting pack on multiple computers across the network; in combination with a custom troubleshooting pack, you could quickly determine which computers suffered from a specific problem or misconfiguration . Because troubleshooting packs can make configuration changes to solve problems, you could use this approach to detect and resolve a common problem without contacting users or manually connecting to computers .

Two of the biggest challenges of troubleshooting hardware problems are determining when the problem began occurring and what might have changed on the computer to introduce the problem . Windows Vista introduced the Reliability Monitor snap-in (as part of the Computer Management console) so that you can easily view application installations, driver installations, and significant failures over several weeks or months . With Windows 7, Reliability Monitor is now integrated with the Action Center to better correlate system changes and events . Figure 30-1 shows Reliability Monitor providing details about events on a specific day, including a failed application installation and security updates .

Beyond the improved user interface, Windows 7 extends Reliability Monitor by exposing reliability data via the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) . Using WMI, you can

gather reliability data remotely and process it using Windows PowerShell scripts and WMIrelated cmdlets (pronounced command-lets) . Now, you can use WMI to centrally monitor the reliability of computers running Windows 7 throughout the network . Management tools such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager can centrally monitor the reliability data from all computers running Windows 7, or you can create your own Windows PowerShell scripts to monitor reliability . By centrally monitoring reliability data, you can identify unreliable computers that are affecting user productivity even if the users don t take the time to call the Support Center . Reliability Monitor is discussed in more detail later in this chapter and in 21, Maintaining Desktop Health .

IT professionals need deep insight into a computer s inner workings to efficiently troubleshoot problems . The more complex the problem is, the more detailed the information must be . For example, although Task Manager is sufficient to identify the process that is using the most processor time, IT professionals need a more powerful tool to identify which process is generating the most disk or network input/output (I/O) . To give IT professionals detailed information about resource utilization on a process-byprocess basis, Windows 7 includes an improved version of Resource Monitor . As shown in Figure 30-2, Resource Monitor displays this data in a format that provides rapid access to a great deal of information that you can use to easily explore process-specific details .