Windows 7, Hardware, Troubleshooting and an Equivocal Title

"Find Out What's Not Working in Windows 7"
Michael Muchmore, PCMag.com (January 13, 2011)

"You may have problems with hardware you don't even know about. Here's a way to check for these and correct them. I recently had to do a clean install of Windows 7 on a friend's laptop. Easy, right? Boot from the installer disk, and let Windows download all the appropriate drivers.

"Not so fast. What if the very network driver, which allows this downloading of the rest of the drivers, wasn't working? That turned out to be the case with my laptop upgrade.

"Have Windows Automatically Fix Driver Problems

"The first thing to try is Windows 7's automated hardware troubleshooter. Click on the Windows button, and type "fix hardware" into the search bar. The top hit should be "Find and fix problems with devices." Click on this. This will start a Wizard entitled Hardware and Devices. Click Next to have it start detecting problems and checking for missing drivers. The troubleshooter will search through all your installed devices, and for each issue it finds, you'll be offer a choice between Apply this fix, and Skip this fix. It's probably a good idea to choose the first, especially if the troubleshooter appears to have found your network driver...."

That title, "Find Out What's Not Working in Windows 7" can be taken at least two ways. Reading it, the Lemming suspected it meant something like "discover what, in the Windows 7 system, is not working." The Lemming has run into quite a few 'I hate Microsoft because - - -' screeds over the decades: and that sort of thing leaves an impression.

Turns out, the title means 'using Windows 7, discover what is not working.' Obviously, the way Mr. Muchmore phrased it is shorter, easier to read, and much more like your typical headline.

The article is a sort of how-2, with fairly detailed procedures - including what to do if you had the operating system scramble your network driver. That's not the best idea, according to the article, since then you'll find connecting to your network awkward - and that'll make it a trifle challenging to download working drivers from the manufacturer's website.

The Lemming may be back to the PCMag.com article tomorrow: The new computer here has Windows 7 - and no driver at all for the scanner.