23 April 2010

Microsoft Fix It Center BETA: Automatic Windows OS Fixer

Microsoft Fix It Center Online Logo

Microsoft Fix It is not a new offering at all. It started around 2 years ago as a way to apply Windows OS configurations fixes via scripts in a automatic fashion. The only hurdle was that you had to go and look for the script that could fix a certain error knowing exactly what error you had from a website and then apply the fix with a click. Perfectly fine for Windows OS Power Users, but not exactly friendly to the rest. That said, it still beat the alternative of looking up a possible solution in windows support forums by a long shot.

Now things are very different as Windows 7 is a lot more resilient to OS configuration errors and registry corruption than XP and Vista ever was. The two things that are the most common reason for bad Windows OS experiences.

Microsoft Fix It Center BETA is a new product that packages all available Fix It Scripts into a desktop client that you can run to diagnose and solve all kind of Windows errors caused by a vast array of conflicts that can occur via any number of reasons. Sorry if that sounds vague but it is what it does, and it does very well.

Microsoft Fix It

Before Fix It Center you had to know the specific error you were looking for and then scan for it in the old Fix website. Now you only need to know what area of your OS functionality is the one that presents a error. You have 25 different areas to choose from. So if it is a printer related error you just click run in the Printer area troubleshooter and let Fix It Center check if it is a known error it can fix automatically.

Or you don’t even need to be sure of exactly what is wrong. You can check all or some of the areas and see it find the error you are experiencing in order to fix it.

Once you decide to run a certain area troubleshooter and authorize it to run. I do recommend for you to choose: “Detect problems and let me select the fixes to apply” option in the troubleshooter window before it runs the area diagnosis.

 

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My reason to suggest you to always do that, is because you may have knowingly modified that area yourself to get extra functionality or to tweak its existing functionality.  The troubleshooter will check for all the default and recommended settings integrity. And if these have been changed it will also revert them along fixing errors if you set for the “Detect problems and apply the fixes for me” option. So you will lose the tweaks and modifications in that area if you do that on top of it resolving a error. If you instead go with my suggested mode it will show the specific issues in that area one by one and you can decide which ones to apply or not apply based in if they are really errors or not. Something you will note right away as it gives you the diagnosis results. If you are still not fully convinced by what it is telling you, it can also run a detailed report on the diagnosis in order for you to be as sure as possible before applying a fix.

Fix It Center at this moment is in a BETA state (But i found it very solid) and it counts with 300 different scripts for 25 different areas of any of the current Windows OSes: XP, Vista and 7 in either 32 or 64 bits versions.

New scripts will be added to the software via its online portal as people starts reporting of missing fixes and information of its use to Microsoft. The app is free and the only thing you need is a Windows Live ID. The Information sharing is Opt-In but in this case i also recommend you to check in as it will speed up this software development and release.

I consider Fix It Center to be a essential windows app because it is not only the best and easiest solution of its kind, but also the official one. It is also even more essential  if you are still using XP or you are keen on keep using XP, while it keeps being a excellent solution to have around in Vista and 7. Totally recommended.

Linkage

Microsoft Fix It Center Online                 <— Homepage

Microsoft Fix It Center BETA                        <— Direct Download Link

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