For many years now I’ve been able to search for solutions only after painstakingly transcribing the error messages from Windows dialog boxes like the one shown below.

Today I discovered the easy way to copy the message text. While the text in these dialogs stubbornly refuses to be selected, surprisingly, the whole error itself can be copied by pressing ctrl-c with the window in focus. When pasted into a text editor, it copies everything including the title, message content and button text:

[Window Title]
replsync.dll - DLL Load Error

[Content]
Cannot load resource dll: REPLRES.RLL

The specified module could not be found.

[OK]

No more manual transcriptions! Life’s too short to waste keystrokes.

I found myself in an odd predicament earlier when I couldn’t get the IIS Manager on one of our Windows Server 2008 R2 boxes to open. When I tried to open it, the IIS icon showed in the taskbar but clicking on it had no effect. I tried just about everything to restore it, even restarting the box to no avail.

The fix for me was to run Inetmgr.exe /reset which resets your IIS preferences, including window size and placement.