Best Troubleshooting Sites!

Here you will find dozens of top sites that can help you track down common Windows problems. Some sites are self-help others offer free support.

Free Solutions to Common Windows Problems
Windows Annoyances offers a very useful set of information on how to deal with common Windows problems. Nice set of tips too. Highly recommended for all users except raw beginners.
http://www.annoyances.org/

Excellent Windows Resource Site
The About Windows Guide is among the best of the Windows portal sites. Tips, tricks, troubleshooting and more. Oriented to end-users rather than tech-heads.
http://windows.about.com/compute/windows/mbody.htm

Excellent Free Tech Support Sites
Subscriber Ted Green writes: “Thanks a million Gizmo for telling me about the Tek-Tips forums. With the help of the forum members I solved a Windows shutdown problem that was driving me nuts.” Note, though, that Tek-Tips is geared toward experienced users. Beginners may get better results from the TechSupportGuy forums. Both are free and well worth trying.
http://www.tek-tips.com/
http://forums.techguy.org/

Free Computer Help
“Computer Hope” is an aptly named web site offering useful online resources, a very active set of forums and a free email support service. I found the forums particularly responsive. Well worth trying next time you run into a PC problem.
http://www.computerhope.com/index.htm Free Help with MS Word
Here’s a site dedicated to tips, tricks and techniques for getting the most out of MS Word
http://www.word-answers.com/

Free Excel Help
If you’ve got an Excel problem you can’t solve, try the busy forum at this site. It’s free and the folks are very helpful.
http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/

Free Outlook Help
Some users just never get the hang of Microsoft Outlook. If you need help, check out this listing of Outlook Web tutorials, most of which are free. These tutorials are not just for beginners; there are some useful advanced guides as well.
http://www.techtutorials.info/emoutlook.html

Fix for Corrupted Office Files
Got a user with a corrupted MS Office document? Tried the built-in filter for raw text recovery and got nowhere? Try this site, which has programs designed to help you.
http://www.officerecovery.com.

Database of File Extensions
Got a file with an unknown extension? Need to know what created it? This’ll help.
http://filext.com/

Free Modem Help
Reader Alex Goode says, “This site is my first port of call when I run into modem problems or when I’m looking for modem info…” I’ve checked it out and it is as goode as Alex says.
http://www.modemhelp.Net

Start-Up Applications Unplugged
It’s frustrating trying to edit the Windows start-up list because the filenames themselves tell you little about the program’s function. This free site lists thousands of common startup files along with full descriptions of what they do plus links back to the vendor’s web site. Top stuff.
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm

Download Missing DLLs
Most users have experienced a “missing DLL” error message. This site provides a free library of DLL files that you can download.
http://www.dll-downloads.com/

Locate Spammers’ Real Locations
These folk provide a free online service where you can type in an IP or URL (web site address) and get the geographical location of the server. They also offer a variety of free tools to allow web sites to customize their web pages according to the geographical location of site visitors.
http://www.geobytes.com/FreeServices.htm

Disposable Email Addresses to Order
Need a temporary email address to give to some annoying web site that insists on you registering? Well, simply make up anything and then add the suffix “@mailinator.com”. For example, giz@mailinator.com. Then go to the Mailinator website and collect any email to that account. It’s free and you don’t even need a password to get your temporary mail. All mail is deleted after a few hours.
http://www.mailinator.com

Troubleshooting Wireless Networks
Despite the advertising, I can assure you that installing a wireless network can be a real pain. If you run into trouble try the excellent troubleshooting section at this site. The site has some excellent tutorials as well.
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/

Track Down Windows Errors
Thanks to subscriber David J. for letting me know about this site which allows you to track down solutions to problems in different Windows sub-systems. The organization of the site is odd but quite effective. It has about 400 topics arranged
alphabetically. However some of the topics are general such as “Shutdown problems” while others are very specific such as “sh31w32.dll.” Once you select a topic you’ll be shown a variety of resources ranging from Microsoft Knowledge base links to simple fix-it guides. Overall, an excellent trouble-shooting resource.
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/

How to Fix Your Printer Yourself
Sick of paying out big bucks to fix simple printer problems? Then try repairing it yourself using the resources provided at this specialist site.
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com

What DLL is That?
Ever wondered what a particular DLL does. Find out from this useful Microsoft database.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/servicedesks/fileversion/dllinfo.asp

Send Files up to 1GB for Nix
This is impressive - a free service that allows you to send a file up to 1GB to another PC or person. Just type in the recipient’s email address and upload the file. The recipient is then notified by email and can download the file anytime within
7 days before it is deleted from the server. “No passwords to share, no software to install, no accounts to create, and no full mailboxes. Start sending now!”
http:/yousendit.com/

Great PDF Resource Site
If you are looking for Adobe PDF information or utilities, head straight for PDFZone. They are currently running an article on the “Ten Best Free PDF utilities.” Here’s the link to the article:
http://www.pdfzone.com/news/1351-PDFzone_news.html

Beep Beeeeep Beep
You turn on your PC and all it does is beep. But what does the code mean? This site will translate for you.
http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.html

Tech Support Guy Free help for users of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP and Linux. This is a volunteer run site with a very active forum area covering a good range of subject areas. You can also search past forum messages, which can be a little slow but may still be the quickest way to get the answer to your problems.

The site layout has been recently revamped and this has greatly improved usability. On the down-side advertising is now more prominent, though not yet intrusive.

When we tested the service, we got the answer to one of our questions immediately by searching the past forum database. Our two remaining questions were posed on the live forums in the appropriate categories and got answers to both, very promptly indeed. Impressive.

5 Star Support
This free site offers a variety of tech support services. First there is an excellent on-line FAQ which provides quick answers to many common problems. Second, they offer some excellent technical guides which cover a wide range of topics from installing a network card to cleaning your mouse. Finally there is an web form where you can pose a specific problem and receive the answer by email.

We got the answer to one of our questions from the FAQ. The other two trickier questions we posed by filling in the web form. We immediately received an email saying that our questions had been sent to all the volunteers and we may receive more an answer from more than one volunteer.

That’s exactly what happened, we got two responses to each question from different individuals. Quickly too, all responses came within 12 hours. The solutions posed were both sound and logical but didn’t solve the problems. We then replied to the emails and asked for other solutions. After a couple of emails the volunteers came up with perfectly acceptable solutions though not necessarily the most technically insightful.

This service is free though donations for successful solutions are suggested. Overall an impressive service particularly for more straightforward problems.

Protonic This is an online community that provides free computer technical support for Windows, Mac, Unix and Palm by email. The site is exceptionally well laid out and easily navigated. All you need do is , register for free then pose your question. The answer will be emailed to you very promptly.

Since last reviewed the site has gone from strength to strength. The already excellent layout has been improved further and response time to our questions was very speedy indeed.

Clean, straightforward and effective. I liked it!

AskMeHelpDesk is a Web site that pairs experts and novices to answer and ask questions. There are hundreds of topics, including many computer-related ones. The computer sections are quite active and I got answers to our test questions within a few hours. Take the strain off your help desk and get your users to check out this excellent free resource.

D-A-L Computer Help This a forum based Windows help service. It’s quite active with responses to questions often posted within a few hours. The “Spyware, Adware, Viruses and HijackThis Logs” section is particularly active and the answers posted both helpful and sound. The “Hand Held” and “Web Design” sections are currently a bit thin but that does not distract from the overall excellence of this free site for general Windows support. Registration is required to post a question but this is a simple and speedy procedure. Well worth trying.

Help.com is a free tech support service from CNet. There are plenty of online resources to help you, drawn from a variety of sources. Some of these are on the help.com site, some are elsewhere. Included in the latter is a question and answer service that links to gives you an easy interface for the Usenet support newsgroups, although to use this service you must register.

Suggest A Fix This is a free forum where users can post problems in the hope that another forum member can help. The available forums cover operating systems, general computing, the Internet and security with many subdivisions under each category.

The forums are not the busiest we’ve seen but almost all questions attract good quality answers. Our 3 test questions were answered very promptly indeed the solutions provided and were of high quality.

Like many other forums, a few dedicated individuals seem to provide the bulk of the answers so you might find the quality of the answers varying day to day according to who’s available. This reservation notwithstanding, we couldn’t fault the service we received.

About Guide on PC Support Here you’ll find an excellent portal site for all PC support issues. The information presented is thorough and comprehensive. They have a forum area where, after registration, you can post messages to other users free of charge. It’s not a particularly active forum, with only a dozen or so messages a day, so you may have to wait a while for a response. We did however, get answers to our problems and the correct answers at that.

Virtual Dr This site forms just part of the huge Internet.com group of sites. They offer a pretty good set of online resources plus a well-used forum area where you can pose questions to fellow users. Registration is required but is free.

PC Crave A nice clean site offering free online and email tech support for all kinds of computer problems. Windows, Mac, Internet, Hardware etc. Just fill in the simple form on the site - no special registration needed.

Support Freaks This is one cute site. It’s not just the funky cartoons or the zippy language, it’s the way the site is structured; it just does it. Support Freaks used to be a paid support site but has now morphed into a free forum based site. The forums are quite active. Well worth trying.