That helpless feeling is quite universal. Regardless of whether your PC merely sniffles or falls over dead, the state of panic will jump out and tickle your chest. It is not a very delightful experience, but it is not quite the end of the world. As a somewhat sane and seasoned expert, I present you with this article with some of my tried-and-true techniques for immediately dealing with pressing PC peril.



If the computer had ears, they would look like your PC keyboard. Just as you would ask a human "Are you okay?" you can theoretically shout at your computer by doing some typing. Unlike real shouting, the computer may actually hear your typing and signal that it is okay. Well, unless the keyboard is dead. But there are ways around that as well! To see whether the keyboard is responding, press the Caps Lock key. If the keyboard is alive and well, the Caps Lock light blinks on or off as you tap the Caps Lock key. It shows you that the keyboard is alive and paying attention.

On most personal computers, the Caps Lock light is directly on the Caps Lock key. But in some cases, it could be near the key or along the top of the keyboard, marked with the text Caps Lock or the letter A For wireless keyboards, the Caps Lock key might even be on the wireless dongle that hangs from the back of the PC console.

If the keyboard is dead, use the mouse to restart the compute. Restarting the computer awakens most snoozing keyboards. Alas, in some cases the keyboard can be alive and well, but the PC is simply ignoring what it is saying. I have seen this happen more often with USB keyboards than with the keyboards that plug right into a keyboard port on the computer. In such cases, the Caps Lock light does indeed blink on and off, but the computer is still dead. Now it is time to restart the computer.

Should you ever foul up a file operation, you need to use the Undo key combination, Ctrl+Z. This will undo almost about any file operation you might imagine. You need to be very prompt using the Ctrl+Z key. The Undo command, found under the Edit menu, undoes only the most recent file operation. If you delete a file and then rename a file, the Undo command undoes only the renaming. You have to find another solution for any earlier problems that need fixing.

Most people forget that editing an item or a submenu on the Start menu is really a file operation. When you screw up something on the Start menu, such as dragging an icon off the Start menu and onto the desktop, pressing Ctrl+Z fixes it right away.

The one thing that you cannot be undone is the Shift+Delete file operation. This is why Windows will warn you about deleting a file in a manner that will render the file as permanently deleted. If Ctrl+Z, or the Undo command, does not work, give up. Either it is too late to undo the operation or the operation was not undoable in the first-place. You have to try something else.

The Esc key on the keyboard is known as Escape for a reason. It will often times get you out of bad situations! Most scary things that happen on a PC can instantly be canceled or backed away from by pressing the handy Esc key.