IT managers know that trying to troubleshoot a PC problem over the phone is difficult at best. It's frustrating for the user, who rarely has the vocabulary to properly describe the problem, and time-consuming for the support staff.

Enter Problem Steps Recorder (PSR), an enterprise-friendly feature that's one of 10 cool tools in Windows 7, as described by TechRepublic's Debra Littlejohn Shinder. Here's an excerpt:

No matter how hard they try, users often have problems accurately describing the problem they're experiencing or the steps they took before or after experiencing it. Sure, Remote Assistance can be a godsend in those situations. But you can't always connect to the user's computer in real time. That's when the PSR comes in handy.

It's really a type of screen capture software that records all actions -- keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc. -- and saves the sequence of events in an MHTML page that documents every step the user took, along with screenshots.

To call PSR "handy" may just be the understatement of the year. For the user, it represents a chance to "show" a problem rather than just "tell" about it. For IT departments, it could shorten problem-resolution times while increasing user uptime.

Sounds like a good candidate for the underhyped Windows 7 features list we discussed a couple weeks back. What do you think?

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