Sometimes you get error Messages with a content that seems a bit odd. Let’s say you get some error stating that 0x080070040 occurred. Now that’s just horrible you might think. Horrible because you have no idea what it means. Then we are in the same boat so let’s have a look at how to translate that gibberish into something meaningful.
Let’s look at the example above, 0x080070040. This code is hexadecimal and needs to be converted into something that can move us towards some explanation that makes sense. So, launch the calculator in Windows. Mine is from Windows 10 (Norwegian edition) and that explains why image has some text you might find strange unless you are Norwegian like me.
OK, so I set calculator in Scientific or Programming mode (depends on your Windows Version). I then select HEX and type in the 4 last digits (0040) of the error code 0x080070040. This is automatically trimmed to 40 since leading zeros are not OK.
If you then click DEC or simply look at the DEC value in your Windows 10 calculator you will see the digit 64. 64 is the decimal value of HEX 40.
Now it’s time to open up Command Prompt. Click Windows start button and type CMD and hit ENTER.
When command prompt is up, we can enter a command that will translate the decimal 64 into text that hopefully makes sense.
NET HELPMSG 64 (the command is not case sencitive btw)
So net helpmsg 64 means that “The specified network name is no longer available”. Good to know and sure beats 0x080070040 any day. Keep in mind that there are a lot of tools out there on the web that can help translate error codes. I like to do it the way I describe above because I often work on machines that belongs to a customer where installing stuff might be a problem.