Reading an error message instead of flinching from it
Look at an error message, take the three parts of it that matter, and carry on without feeling accused of anything.
Error messages are written by programmers, at speed, for other programmers, and then shipped to everybody. The tone is an accident of who was in the room.
That is why they read like accusations. Illegal operation. Access denied. Fatal error. None of those words are about you, and none of them mean anything is damaged. Fatal is trade slang for "this attempt stopped here". Illegal means "not allowed by the rules of this program". Access denied usually means a password expired last Tuesday.
An exact error code is one of the few things worth searching for, because somebody else has always met it first.
Put the message in quotation marks — "Error 0x800CCC0E" — and the results narrow to pages about that precise fault. Add the name of the program if there are too many.
Reading is safe. Typing a code into a search is safe. Ringing and installing are the two doors, and both of them are covered later.
Key points
- Read an error message for its three useful parts instead of its tone
- Find the Details or More button that nearly every error box hides
- Copy a code exactly, rather than reading it down a telephone
- Search for the exact words in quotation marks, and know which results to leave alone
What to remember
- Copy the code before you press OK. Pressing OK is what makes it unrepeatable.
- A computer can only report what it checked. It has no view about you at all.
Try this
Next time any box appears on any screen — even a harmless one — read the last line out loud before you press OK. Getting used to reading them when nothing is wrong is what stops them looking like accusations when something is.
Practice: Reading an error message instead of flinching from it. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.