Google is a wonderful tool for searching technical problems.
You can just do a general search for error messages, etc., at times you will get more results than you need if you search string doesnÂ’t contain enough info or no results if it is too complex.
When I search Google for problems, I will typically enter only the relevent information. For example, if your looking to find out why your getting the following error message:
Source: Userenv
Event ID: 1030
Type: Error
Description: Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. A message that describes the reason for this was previously logged by the policy engine. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
First, the link at the bottom of the Event Viewer doesnÂ’t always help. But Google can.
The hard part is to determine the necessary information. The Event ID is important, but also the very first sentence in the description is also important. This example is easy, but many error message may contain a great deal of information, you will have to sift through it to gleam the important content. Sometimes you will need to add items not contained in the error message. For example, the application you were running at the time, hardware, operating system version, etc.
Once you have the important items enter them into Google.
You would enter Event ID 1030 Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. That would get you nice results, and is always worth a try. But if it doesnÂ’t get good results, sometimes it is better to seperate the information. For example, enclose the error description in quotes. Today in google my example, dropped the results from thousands to only hundreds. A lot less to sort through, and may actually get you better results.
Now what if you still get thousands of hits on the search. Well here is where I tend to search only certain manufactures. At the end of your search string, if you enter Â’site:microsoft.comÂ’ you will search only Microsoft pages indexed by Google. This works for most manufactures; Adobe, Macromedia, etc. Note however that often Google has not indexed some sites because of the dynamic nature of their sites. Also Google has separate pages for Microsoft, Apple, Linux, but the above still works.
There are many other options to google search. AND OR NOT operators for example.
You can just do a general search for error messages, etc., at times you will get more results than you need if you search string doesnÂ’t contain enough info or no results if it is too complex.
When I search Google for problems, I will typically enter only the relevent information. For example, if your looking to find out why your getting the following error message:
Source: Userenv
Event ID: 1030
Type: Error
Description: Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. A message that describes the reason for this was previously logged by the policy engine. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
First, the link at the bottom of the Event Viewer doesnÂ’t always help. But Google can.
The hard part is to determine the necessary information. The Event ID is important, but also the very first sentence in the description is also important. This example is easy, but many error message may contain a great deal of information, you will have to sift through it to gleam the important content. Sometimes you will need to add items not contained in the error message. For example, the application you were running at the time, hardware, operating system version, etc.
Once you have the important items enter them into Google.
You would enter Event ID 1030 Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. That would get you nice results, and is always worth a try. But if it doesnÂ’t get good results, sometimes it is better to seperate the information. For example, enclose the error description in quotes. Today in google my example, dropped the results from thousands to only hundreds. A lot less to sort through, and may actually get you better results.
Now what if you still get thousands of hits on the search. Well here is where I tend to search only certain manufactures. At the end of your search string, if you enter Â’site:microsoft.comÂ’ you will search only Microsoft pages indexed by Google. This works for most manufactures; Adobe, Macromedia, etc. Note however that often Google has not indexed some sites because of the dynamic nature of their sites. Also Google has separate pages for Microsoft, Apple, Linux, but the above still works.
There are many other options to google search. AND OR NOT operators for example.
