Having worked in SoftLayer's technical support department for a few years now, I can tell you that the more information you provide us, the faster we can get you to a resolution. If you can show us exactly the problem you're seeing with details from when you see it, it's much easier for us to troubleshoot, so I wanted to post a quick blog on the heels of Todd's "Global Network: The Proof is in the Traceroute" post to help you get information to us much more easily.

Document Format
Many people consider a Microsoft Word document the lowest common denominator when it comes to formatting an attachment or file while others prefer plain text for everything. I always advocate the use of plain text. Plain text is universally accessible, it doesn't require a third-party application to view, it doesn't add funky encoding, and it uses monospaced fonts that format the text like you'd see in a command prompt if you were sharing troubleshooting results from ping and traceroute commands. It's quite unnecessary to take a screen capture of a ping or traceroute when you run it, and it's doubly unnecessary to paste that screen capture into a Microsoft Word document.

Copying Your Ping/Traceroute
The problem many Windows users run into is that it's not very clear how to copy text from the command prompt … The familiar keyboard shortcuts for copying (CTRL+C) and pasting (CTRL+V) don't work from the DOS Prompt, so the screen capture route is usually the easiest to execute. There is an easy way to copy, though.

Microsoft documented the instructions you need, and I wanted to share them with SoftLayer customers here:

1. Open the command prompt. If you're unsure how to do this, open the Start Menu, click Run, enter "cmd" (without the quotes) and click OK.
2. Execute your command. Use "tracert softlayer.com" to follow along with this test.
3. Right-click the title bar of the command prompt window, point to Edit, and then click Mark.
4. Click the beginning of the text you want to copy.
5. Press and hold down the SHIFT key, and then click the end of the text you want to copy (or you can click and drag the cursor to select the text).
6. Right-click the title bar, point to Edit, and then click Copy.

Now the text is in the clipboard. You can paste it anywhere, including the body of a ticket. To preserve layout, I usually paste the text in Notepad and attach that file to the ticket. If you don't want to go through the hassle of opening Notepad, just paste the results into the comment field below.

If you enjoy reading quick tips like this one that can make life easier, be sure to check out KnowledgeLayer.

-Lyndell

Bonus tip: If you want to submit your traceroute in a comment on this blog without losing the mono-spaced formatting, surround the pasted content with the and tags.

Tags: copy, details, dos, paste, ping, SoftLayer, support, technical support, tickets, tips, traceroute, tricks, troubleshooting, Windows

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5, 2011 at 10:20 am.

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