PreScan © 2018 TASS International
16
Technical Support
Attach additional files that help us to reproduce the problem
The following files have proven to be of great additional help to us:
Screenshots
Complete experiment directory and accompanying files (like images, ORM models)
Log files
User Library Elements
2.1.1 How to Make a Screenshot?
A "screenshot" is a snapshot of what's on your computer's screen. To create a screenshot follow these
steps:
1.
The first step is to create the windows that you want to capture and leave them up on the screen.
2.
Just to the right of your keyboard, you should see three groups of keys. The lower set of keys usually is
a group of arrow keys. Above that is usually a set of some six keys that are labeled "Insert," "Home,"
"Page Up," etc. Above that should be three keys that have rather odd labels - like Pause/Break and
ScrLk. One of those keys should be labeled PrtScrn/SysRq. Pressing Alt-PrintScreen (Alt-PrtScrn)
places an image of the frontmost window on the clipboard. Pressing PrintScreen by itself places an
image of the entire desktop on the clipboard.
3.
If you press PrtScrn/SysRq, nothing will appear to have happened. However, your computer just took a
snapshot of its screen and stored that picture on its clipboard, much as it stores information that you cut
and paste.
4.
Open MS-Paint. (From Start/Run, issue the command "mspaint".) Create a new empty image, and use
Edit/Paste to bring in the screenshot you just took. (If the screenshot is smaller than the default Paint
canvas, you will end up with white areas. Start over: create a new empty image, change its dimensions
to 1x1, and Paste again. The canvas will grow for the Paste, but it doesn't shrink.)
5.
Use MS-Paint to Save As, using PNG as the file format (it is superior to all the rest).
Some remarks
Instead of MS Paint you could also use Word, or some other word processing program, you can paste
the image into it. You can then save the Word document and email it to us as an attachment.
You may also be able to paste the image directly into your email, depending on what type of email
program you have. (Microsoft Outlook can do this, for example.)
If you press Alt and the PrtScrn/SysRq keys together, the computer will take a snapshot of the currently
active window ONLY. This can save some space in a Word document or in an email.
This works on all supported Windows versions.
2.1.2 About Log files
Log files are created and updated each time when PreScan is running. In case of a problem with PreScan and
when shared with the PreScan Helpdesk, these files can be of great help in finding the root cause of the
problem you have run into.
Contents
Of all log files PreScan.log is the most important one.
On start-up, a brief summary of the PC running PreScan is being added to this log.
In addition, the following user actions are being logged:
Any menu command being executed;
Adding and removing items to or from the experiment tree;
Item properties being changed;