Let’s start with the biggie:

Windows.

All it takes is one little file going corrupt.  One little ‘driver’ file for your video card going bad and poof!  No display.  No display, no Windows.  Simple as that.

In my case, I’d yawn, slap in the True Image boot-up disc and go do something for 10 minutes while it restored the system from the last image file I’d made.

For those not using the disc image system, I suppose the first — and last — thing you can try is reach for the ‘Restore’ disc that hopefully came with your computer and let it do its thing.  If you don’t have a ‘Restore’ disc, then it’s off to the repair shop and you can be thinking of that $35 you could have spent on True Image when you get the bill.

If something looks funny with Windows after it boots up (and after a reboot), open Display Properties and try a different ‘theme’.  Also, open System Properties, ‘Advanced’ tab, then ‘Performance’, ‘Settings’, uncheck the last entry.  Remember both of these settings if later things clear up and you want to set things back the way they were.

If something’s running that shouldn’t be running after you boot up, go to Start Menu, ‘Run’, ‘msconfig’, click on the ‘Startup’ tab.  Everything legitimate that starts up during boot-up is listed.  If it’s not obvious, do a Google search and find out what it is and who it belongs to.

On the subject, I presume you’ve read the ‘Setup – Easy’ page and have taken care of that end of things.  If so, then anything new that’s been added to the system (possibly by some spyware) should stand out in MSConfig.
 

Programs

The absolute first thing you should do if a program seems to be acting funny is reboot.  Not only will that get rid of any ‘momentary’ problem the program might have picked up, but it’ll give Windows a chance to run its own little system diagnosis as it shuts down and hopefully fix the problem.

On the subject, I should note that there are actually three types of rebooting:

1. Warm boot — the computer never shuts off

2. Cold boot — the computer is shut off, then restarted

3. Total power-off — Not everything inside the computer case shuts down when the power is off.  That’s easily proven by looking at the back of the case if you have a network card installed, whereupon you should see a small green light.  Furthermore, even unplugging the machine doesn’t eliminate all the juice contained therein.  The ultimate reboot is unplugging the case then holding in the power switch for a few seconds.  That’ll drain whatever’s going to drain.  I’ve seen situations where a balky DVD-ROM refused to work until this was done. 

The next thing to try would be to open Add/Remove and see if it has a ‘Repair’ function alongside the ‘Remove’.  If so, give it a spin.

When it comes to a program simply ceasing to work, there are a number of approaches one can take.  And no two experts approach it quite the same way.  My good buddy RadioHowie immediately bails out and heads for Google, whereas I’ll waste time poking through the system — then head for Google.  And where he might waste an hour on Google trying various things to fix the problem, I’ll bail out the second I feel it’s unfixable, slap in an image backup file and be up and running in 15 minutes (5 for the Googling and 10 for the backup).  By the time the dust settles, we’ve probably spent the same amount of time fixing things over the course of a year.

If you’re going to have a problem, pray you get a small error message box.  It’s a LOT easier trying to nail down a problem when you can get on Google with a specific error message, rather than just lamely typing in the program’s name and "does not run".  The only ‘trick’ is to put the error message in quote marks so Google will look for that exact phrase.  Hopefully, you’ll end up in some forum where someone has asked the same question and someone else has provided the answer.

If there’s no error message, just use as many relevant keywords as you can think of and hope for the best.  You might start out with the program’s version number, then eliminate it if nothing substantial pops up.  Also make sure an "xp" is in every search.

On the local front, you could try running a program like Norton WinDoctor and hope for the best.  If it finds a problem but can’t fix it (click on ‘Details’ to see the particulars), it’ll at least tell you what’s wrong.  Usually it’s a missing file that can be found via Google and downloaded.  Copy it to the program’s folder, run WinDoctor again and this time it’ll find the file which might — might — fix the problem.  I wouldn’t get my hopes up, though.  System-checkers like WinDoctor tend to be fairly generic and ‘safe” in their fixes and simply aren’t smart enough to be able to look at one particular program’s files and figure out if something is amiss or not.

Next on the list is to uninstall and reinstall the program via Control Panel, Add/Remove.  I’d strongly recommend rebooting after the uninstall and running a Registry-checker like Registry Clean (and WinDoctor if you have it) before the reinstall.  Also, install it to a program folder with a different name than the original, just to keep the Registry from being confused.  If it was in "CoolProgram" before, make the folder "CoolProgram2" this time around.
 

Video

Video is somewhat finicky and deserves a section of its own:

• If you can’t watch videos like on news sites, it’s probably a Flash problem.  The easiest overall solution is to run the Flash Removal Tool, then reinstall Flash.
   
• If it’s a streaming media link and you look down in the status bar and see that the file name ends in ".wvx", and all you get is an error box when you click on it, it means you’ve associated the ".wmv" file extension with some other movie player than Windows Media Player.  Open Media Player, Tools Menu, ‘Options’, ‘File Types’ panel, make sure the first three entries are fully checked, not checked but partially ghosted out.
   
  In theory, at this point the link on the page should work.  If you normally want to play local WMV files with the another player (as I do with Media Player Classic), click on a WMV icon with the right mouse button, ‘Change’, then click on your player if you see it listed at the top of the box.  If not, ‘Browse’ to the player.  If you’ll then re-open WMP and look at the options, you’ll see the WMV box is still checked (which means the streaming link is still there), but ghosted out (meaning it’s been altered for local files).

• If you’re having problems playing certain video clips on your computer, try the terrific (free) KM Player.  Details partway down the page here.
   
• If you’re having trouble playing DVDs on your computer (which are handled differently than regular videos), I’d recommend PowerDVD or WinDVD.
   

Summation

There’s no question that software probs are the biggest headache around.  At least with hardware, a bit of troubleshooting will usually nail the culprit.  But with software, one program could install some driver that messes up second program.  The problem is, you won’t run that second program for another month, and when it won’t work at that point, you’ll have long forgotten about the first program.  And, for that matter, even if you ran the second program a minute later and realized it must have been the first program that messed it up, uninstalling the first program still probably won’t fix the second program.  It’ll have to be reinstalled — and then you’d better hope that, in turn, it doesn’t mess up the first program!