Working with the Automated Help System

Windows Vista's many Automated Help And Support enhancements fundamentally change how the operating system works and how you support it. As an administrator, it is important to understand how this help architecture works. Beyond the operating system components that provide the low-level functionality, and over which you have little or no control, the Help And Support architecture includes the following:

• Support services that provide top-level functionality

• Support policies that control how diagnostics and problem resolution work

These features are introduced in the sections that follow.

Introducing Support Services

To support automated diagnostics and problem resolutions, Windows Vista provides separate components and tools for working with and managing diagnostics, problem reporting, and user assistance. These components all rely on the availability of the support services installed with the operating system. If you access the Services node in the Computer Management administrative tool, you'll find a bundle of services dedicated to the system support.

Table 1 provides an overview of key support services. Windows Vista's problem detection, troubleshooting, and resolution features are largely supported by the Diagnostic Policy and Diagnostic System Host services. A third related service, the Diagnostic Service Host service, starts only as needed.

Table 1: Support Services in Windows Vista

Name	Description
Application Experience	Processes application compatibility cache requests for applications
Application Information	Allows users to run applications with additional administrative privileges
Application Management	Processes installation, removal, and enumeration requests for software deployed through Group Policy
Background Intelligent Transfer Service	Transfers files in the background using idle network bandwidth
Diagnostic Policy	Enables problem detection, troubleshooting, and resolution for Windows components
Diagnostic System Host	Enables problem detection, troubleshooting, and resolution for Windows components
Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support	Provides support for the Program Compatibility Assistant
Secondary Logon	Enables starting processes under alternate credentials
Superfetch	Helps maintain and improve performance by prefetching component and application data based on usage patterns
System Event Notification Service	Monitors system events and provides notification services
Task Scheduler	Enables a user to configure and schedule automated tasks
Themes	Provides user experience for themes management
User Profile Service	Responsible for loading and unloading user profiles during logon and logoff
Windows Error Reporting Service	Allows errors to be reported when programs stop responding and allows solutions to be retrieved
Windows Event Log	Responsible for logging events
Windows Management Instrumentation	Provides system management information
Windows Modules Installer	Supports Windows updates of recommended and optional components
Windows Time	Used to synchronize system time with world time
Windows Update	Enables updating of Windows components and other programs

As you can see from the number of support services, the automated help system built into Windows Vista is fairly complex. The system is designed to automatically monitor system health, perform preventative maintenance, and report problems so they can be resolved. Related performance and reliability data can be tracked in the Performance Diagnostics console, which includes a performance monitor and a reliability monitor.

Support services provide the foundation for the enhanced support features in Windows Vista. If critical services are not running or configured properly, you might have problems using certain support features. You can view these and other services in Computer Management by completing the following steps:

1. Click Start and then click Control Panel.

2. In Control Panel, click the System And Maintenance category heading link.

3. Click Administrative Tools and then double-click Computer Management.

4. Right-click the Computer Management entry in the console tree and select Connect To Another Computer. You can now select the system whose services you want to view.

5. Expand the Services And Applications node by clicking the plus sign (+) next to it. Then select Services, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Use the Services view to manage services on Windows Vista.

Introducing Support Policies

To control how diagnostics and problem resolution works, Windows Vista relies on policy settings in Group Policy. You'll find related policy settings under Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Troubleshooting And Diagnostics. The related policies are:

• Application Compatibility Alerts Together with the Program Compatibility Assistant Service, the related policies determine how application incompatibility alerting works. By default, Windows Vista alerts you if you try to start an incompatible application. The application is either not allowed to execute or allowed to execute with a warning message.

• Disk Diagnostic Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine how disk fault alerting is handled. Disk faults can indicate that a disk is failing and might need to be repaired or replaced. By default, Windows Vista uses fault reports provided by disk drives to alert you to potential problems. Related events are also recorded in the event logs.

• Corrupted File Recovery Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and recovery behavior for corrupted system files. Corrupted system files can cause the operating system to fail to load. In earlier releases of Windows, you couldn't easily recover the operating system if system files were corrupted. By default, during startup, Windows Vista automatically detects corrupted system files and then enters a recovery state with either minimal or no user interface. Recovery of the corrupted file is then either automatic or manual depending on the system configuration.

• Windows Memory Leak Diagnosis Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and recovery behavior for memory leaks. By default, Windows Vista alerts you if it detects an application or component with a memory leak. A memory leak occurs if an application or system component doesn't completely free areas of physical memory after it is done with them. Over time, memory leaks can cause poor performance. They can also cause the system to run out of available memory.

• Windows Boot Performance Diagnostics Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and resolution behavior for boot performance issues. By default, Windows Vista alerts you when it detects boot, standby/resume, and shutdown issues that affect performance. Related events are also logged in the event logs. For troubleshooting, Windows Vista also attempts to determine the root cause of any related problem and then assists you through the resolution.

• Windows Standby/Resume Performance Diagnostics Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and resolution behavior for standby/resume performance issues. By default, Windows Vista alerts you when it detects standby/resume issues that affect performance. Related events are also logged in the event logs. For troubleshooting, Windows Vista also attempts to determine the root cause of any related problem and then assists you through the resolution.

• Windows System Responsiveness Performance Diagnostics Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and resolution behavior for performance issues that affect system responsiveness. By default, Windows Vista alerts you when it detects these performance issues. Related events are also logged in the event logs. For troubleshooting, Windows Vista also attempts to determine the root cause of any related problem and then assists you through the resolution.

• Windows Shutdown Performance Diagnostics Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and resolution behavior for shutdown performance issues. By default, Windows Vista alerts you when it detects shutdown issues that affect performance. Related events are also logged in the event logs. For troubleshooting, Windows Vista also attempts to determine the root cause of any related problem and then assists you through the resolution.

• Windows Resource Exhaustion Detection And Resolution Together with Diagnostic Policy Service, the related policies determine detection and resolution behavior conditions where the operating system is running low on virtual memory. By default, Windows Vista alerts you when it detects low virtual memory conditions. Related events are also logged in the event logs. For troubleshooting, Windows Vista alerts you and identifies the processes consuming the largest amount of memory, allowing you to close any or all of these highly resource-consuming processes.

Most of these policies have a default Not Configured state that permits automated detection, troubleshooting, and resolution, as well as an enabled state that explicitly sets the behavior for detection, troubleshooting, and resolution. If you don't want diagnostics to indicate to the user that assisted resolution is available, you can configure most of these policies with an enabled state and an execution level of Detection And Troubleshooting Only. In this execution level, built-in diagnostics will detect the problem and attempt to resolve it automatically. While it will log related events in the event logs, it will neither alert the user if automated resolution is unsuccessful nor will it provide possible solutions.