Microsoft Support Diagnostic Packages

SCENARIO

You have a problem you are troubleshooting with a Windows server or desktop and you would like a tool to do an initial triage and data collection.

HOW TO

URL: https://home.diagnostics.support.microsoft.com/

You can search for a diagnostics package that suites your needs. Click on it and select Create. It will then give your a support key. Use this to get the package started.

Click next and then select "A different Computer".

Then select a location where you want to store the resulting diagnostic files. The tool will create a local support diagnostics package. Later the wizard will ask you for where the diagnostics package is.

By default this utility is going to upload your results to Microsoft. But we want to run it on our machine and have the resulting data. So you can cancel out the wizard and just run the diagnostic by double clicking on the .diagcab file.

NOTE: It may take a little time for the wizard to show up...

Click on "Advanced" and the uncheck "Apply repairs automatically" - unless you want it to try to repair automatically. Then proceed though the wizard. You will eventually come to the end and you will be given the option to save the diagnostic data.

You will have a results.cab file. Extract the files and you are done.

The ResultReport.xml file will have information related to what the diagnostic found, but the formatting is not awesome. You may want to start with doing a search for *.htm and viewing those files to see if anything was found.