Workshop

Most folks don’t realize just how much trouble bad AC power can cause—it’s really worth trying to rule
out the power of a PC that, for example, is locking up as it gets into the network by plugging the PC into a
different wall outlet or adding a power conditioner. A power conditioner is a special filtering device that
acts to get rid of the jitters and brownouts that can plague AC power (particularly in rural areas).
Again, beware of chasing the low-level components. For example, operating system components can be
an adventure in and of themselves; you can literally spend days doing comparisons of these lowest level
objects. This might be worth it sometimes, but for most small areas of trouble, keep in mind that
information you don’t need is information you don’t want. This is known as information hiding. Keep the
fuel pump image from the introduction of this book firmly in mind when you’re about to dive into more
internals than you really care to deal with. Do you really need to learn all the icky details of what various
Windows DLL files do if you can simply copy somebody’s known “good” Windows configuration to
solve the problem?
On the other hand, if an email program is complaining that it can’t load MAPI32.DLL, it’s usually worth
looking at the MAPI32.DLL file on the hard drive. Sometimes the file is damaged, (it might show a size
of 0, for example). Also, you might compare it to a known “good” MAPI32.DLL and realize that it’s
much shorter than it should be. In this case, copying one file from a known “good” workstation is faster
than reloading and reconfiguring the entire workstation. It’s a bit of a balancing act—you just need to
look at the given situation, see what information you have, figure out how much time it would take to
change something out, and take what seems like the quickest and most effective action.
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