Geek Practitioners Blog

I actually did not know this! Which is a complete shock to me, having a fairly deep knowledge of such tricks and having come from a Microsoft support background.

Ctrl-C while an error message is popped up, text of the message goes on Windows clipboard, you can paste it in an e-mail to your supper person or save it in a text file for future reference. I always used the “jot it down” or Alt-Print Screen methods.

So seeing this, I just had to test it. Lacking something giving me an error, I fired up VB.NET on the theory that an error message is just a message box. I did the simplest thing possible in a new app, so this is in the form load event:

MsgBox(”There has been an error. So there!”)

I ran it, pressed Ctrl-C, and pasted into Notepad. The text in Notepad is:

—————————
WindowsApplication1
—————————
There has been an error. So there!
—————————
OK
—————————

How cool. I can’t believe I didn’t know that, so I wonder how new it is. Can’t be completely new, as I am on Windows 2000. It also gives no indication that it’s doing anything useful; pressing Ctrl-C on the error message causes a “that keystroke doesn’t cut it in this situation” error sound.

Is. It. Plugged. In.

Really, are you sure you checked?

If you help people for money or free, it’s often the first question to ask. It’s also one that people Will Lie About. Well, maybe not lie, but presume about, gloss over, fail to check carefully, not take seriously.

Happens all the time. That’s why I often tell people to unplug and replug cables, rather than merely asking are they plugged in properly. Network cables especially lend themself to that.

So please, if you’re the hapless computer user with the problem, please pay attention to the basics like this. Never assume. Never brush it off.