You’ve followed the instructions, yet you just can’t get the hoped-for result from a Cheap Trick? Every trick published on this site, in our books and magazines has been tested by our staff. In fact, we’ve rejected some terrific tricks because we could not get them to work for us.

Here are a few reasons one of our tested and published tricks may not work for you:

• You are not using the specified version of the software. If a trick is listed for version 3.1 of software, it probably does not work for version 3.0 and may not work for version 3.2.

• You are not using exactly the same version of the software as we are, although no particular version is specified in the trick. A trick reported to us as being valid for version 3 may have passed the test on our copy which is version 3.0 — but won’t work on your copy which is the revised version 3.1.

• You have a slightly different version of the operating system. Windows 95 and 98, for instance, come in several "versions" although Microsoft doesn’t admit to having issued any upgrades. There’s the original Win95 released in 1995, the "a" version upgraded by the first service pack, the "b" version (often called OSR2 or Release 2) that was preinstalled on many new computers, and the version of Windows 95 that you end up with when you also install Internet Explorer 4 or 5. Windows 98 has the original version, as well as the Second Edition, Windows 98 SE. Each of these work in slightly different ways, possibly affecting the tricks you’re trying to use.

• You have installed utilities or other small programs that have modified the functioning of your operating system or are running in the background, interfering with the working of the trick. On a Windows computer, hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and press Delete to bring up the Close Program window. This will show you the various items currently active and you can try shutting some down with the End Task button and see if the trick works better then. On a Macintosh, hold down the Shift key while restarting the computer to turn off all Extensions and Control Panels, and then try the trick again.

• You have missed or misread a tiny step. Did you mix up clicking (once with the left mouse button), right-clicking (once with the left mouse button), and double-clicking (twice with the left button)? Did you hold down the Ctrl, Alt or Shift key as specified in that sequence of key combinations? Registry tricks are particularly fussy — make sure you’re clicking properly on the correct key or string value.

• The font used by our typesetter, our Web page or your browser has changed the appearance of the commands used in the trick, causing you to mistake the characters. For example, in some fonts the letter f (lowercase F) turns into a fancy character when italics is applied and it has been mistaken for an S by some readers. The backslash (\) tends to straighten out when italicized and has sometimes been perceived as a pipe (|) or even a forward slash (/). Zero has often been mixed up with O (the letter after M). The characters 1 (one), i or I (the letter after h), l (the letter after k), ! (exclamation) and | (pipe) have often been confused. Check the commands to see if any of these tricky characters are involved.

• Your system keeps files in an atypical location or with an uncommon name. For instance, for some tricks we have assumed that your Windows files are kept in a directory named Windows on your hard drive designated as C, and therefore we use a pathname such as C:\Windows\sysedit.exe in the trick. If your system files were instead installed in a folder named Win98 on hard drive H, then you would have to substitute H:\Win98\sysedit.exe for the pathname in the trick.

• There are factors involved that we are not aware of. The speed of entering the commands may be important. Or the exact positioning of the mouse. Or which other software had run on that computer earlier in the day. Or the time of day, for all we know. We recall one trick that we tried more than a dozen times on the same computer with the same software before it suddenly started working, and has worked ever since — and has worked for readers who have commented on it. We have no idea what the significant factor was in this case.