Do "real" techies use help?

At home I have books everywhere.  Shelves full of manuals for the various products I have used over the years. This Christmas I bought my wife a new camera. There was a very small leaflet to get you started but no longer a big fat book.  The manual came on a CD.   This is great for the trees and much cheaper for the companies that need to send out the manuals.  Even better, often you don't even get the CD - you can just download the manual from the Internet!

Having got the manual from wherever it might be, one of the questions I ask people, especially techies, is ‘Do you use help’? Although you'd think the standard response would be a sharp "No", strangely a small number say that they do.  And good on them, because within the windows operating systems there are a lot of hidden gems tucked away in help and support.  The belligerent and misguided refusal to rely on the help crutch means that you might miss them.......


........ You can find the Windows XP Help by clicking Start and choosing the ‘Help and Support’ option.

 On the right under ‘Pick a task’ choose the Tools link and you'll find some really useful snippets here - I've selected a few below but have a look for yourself.

For those of you studying, in your manuals they will mention the command tools and provide partial help. This is where to come for more information and it very often provides examples.

Take a look at the Ping command. I have used the ping command as an example as it is non-destructive. Do make sure you know what a command will do to your system before running it - you don't want to do yourself some damage!

The help provides an overview of what the command is for.

Ping - Verifies IP-level connectivity to another TCP/IP computer by sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Echo Request messages. The receipt of corresponding Echo Reply messages are displayed, along with round-trip times. Ping is the primary TCP/IP command used to troubleshoot connectivity, reachability, and name resolution. Used without parameters, ping displays help.

You can often also find complete syntax but do watch out for the odd typo. I always use the reference to make sure.

Syntax - ping [-t] [-a] [-n Count] [-l Size] [-f] [-i TTL] [-v TOS] [-r Count] [-s Count] [{-j HostList
-k HostList}] [-w Timeout] [TargetName]

You then get an explanation of the parameters and what they are used for. I haven't listed all the parameters here - you can find them by opening your own help and support - but here are a few.

Parameters -

-a  - Specifies that reverse name resolution is performed on the destination IP address. If this is successful, ping displays the corresponding host name.

-t - Specifies that ping should continue sending Echo Request messages to the destination until interrupted. To interrupt and display statistics, press CTRL-BREAK. To interrupt and quit ping, press CTRL-C.

-n Count  - Specifies the number of Echo Request messages sent. The default is 4.

-r Count - Specifies that the Record Route option in the IP header is used to record the path taken by the Echo Request message and corresponding Echo Reply message. Each hop in the path uses an entry in the Record Route option. If possible, specify a Count that is equal to or greater than the number of hops between the source and destination. The Count must be a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 9.

The reference also has remarks giving further support details, mentioning earlier versions and some usage info - here are a couple of examples:

• You can use ping to test both the computer name and the IP address of the computer. If pinging the IP address is successful, but pinging the computer name is not, you might have a name resolution problem. In this case, ensure that the computer name you are specifying can be resolved through the local Hosts file, by using Domain Name System (DNS) queries, or through NetBIOS name resolution techniques.

• This command is available only if the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol is installed as a component in the properties of a network adapter in Network Connections.

You get examples of the use of the command and that can help you to understand the context - I've listed a couple here: 
The following example shows ping command output:

C:\>ping example.microsoft.com
Pinging example.microsoft.com [192.168.239.132] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.239.132: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=124
Reply from 192.168.239.132: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=124
Reply from 192.168.239.132: bytes=32 time=120ms TTL=124
Reply from 192.168.239.132: bytes=32 time=120ms TTL=124

To ping the destination 10.0.99.221 and resolve 10.0.99.221 to its host name, type:
ping -a 10.0.99.221

To ping the destination 10.0.99.221 with 10 Echo Request messages, each of which has a Data field of 1000 bytes, type:
ping -n 10 -l 1000 10.0.99.221


Trying to learn all the commands is a tall order but having a vague recollection that there is a command that might help and knowing how to quickly get to the help and support to find out how to use it, what it does exactly and what parameters you can use provides you with a fantstic support resource.

It might not be macho to admit to using help but don't write it off until you've tried it!

All the best - Mel.