Welcome!

Hello world, welcome to my blog! My name is Matt Bielman; I am a Program Manager with Microsoft and build automated diagnostics for Windows. I started at Microsoft as a Support Professional in 1999 supporting Windows 95/98. Since then, I’ve been involved with the support of each consumer Windows product, and while I don’t answer phones anymore, I still have a passion for solving customer problems and improving the support experience.

I’ve traded in my headset for a PowerShell book and spend my days designing and building a new generation of troubleshooting tools. Back when I was on the phones “diagnostics” referred to things like DXDiag, MSConfig, and MSInfo32. These were very powerful, often scary tools that got the job done better than anything that had come before, but they left a lot to be desired. Fast-forward to Windows 7 and now we have an awesome set of user-friendly troubleshooting tools that both customers and support professionals can appreciate. If you’re running Windows 7 head on over to the Troubleshooting Control Panel and check them out!

All of the troubleshooters you see here are built on the Windows Troubleshooting Platform, which is something that you can take advantage of! We use these troubleshooters with our customers to quickly and easily resolve common problems, and you can too. You can also build your own troubleshooting packs to address specific problems with your application or environment. Come join me and learn how to transform problems into automated solutions using the Windows Troubleshooting Platform.

Let’s kick things off with some useful resources. In future posts I’ll explain how to build your own troubleshooting packs, take advantage of the inbox diagnostics from your product, and share other examples of how to put this powerful platform to work.

Windows Troubleshooting Platform Resources

· Windows Troubleshooting Platform reference on MSDN

· Windows 7 Troubleshooting Root Causes

· MSDT command line reference

· Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7

Thanks!

-MB