Every now and then you come across a little-known tool buried away somewhere that you immediately fall in love with.  For me, one of those tools has been the new Problem Step Recorder tool that comes with Windows 7.  A colleague of mine informed me about this little gem, and after using it once I was hooked.  This guy finally makes creating technical documentation and how-to guides fun!

It’s a pretty simple tool to use – you simple launch the tool from Windows 7 by typing “PSR” from the Run window and then hit the record button and let it watch what you are doing (you can also find it hiding in the Control Panel area as well).  When you are done, stop the recording and it will save a dynamic HTML file with screenshots, annotations and even comments that you have added.  The final quality of the documentation is outstanding – people will think that you hired a technical copy editor to produce something this good.

This tool is really useful for those times when you need to explain something to friends, family or colleagues and you can’t “show them” yourself.  It’s also a handy tool to use for remote diagnosis.  Suppose your son or daughter is away at college and is having a problem with their laptop.  You could ask them to run this, recreate the problem, and then send you the file it creates.  You could then see what is going on without having to connect to their PC or have them try to explain it over the phone or email.

Developers will also find this tool handy for helping create installation and technical documentation for programs.  All too often documentation is an afterthought because most people find it such a chore to write and maintain.  With PSR you can now just record what you are doing and annotate it – instant documentation!

I’ve created a sample of what Problem Step Recorder can do that you can view online.  Click here to be taken to the demo showing off a technical step-by-step of opening up a draft file in Windows Live Writer.

The more I use Windows 7 the more I find these “hidden gems” and discover some of the really cool features Microsoft has buried into the OS.  Windows XP had a long life, but now the time (and features) are right for Windows 7 to finally take the throne.

Tags

desktop, clubhouse, how-to, windows 7, remote support

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