One main problem that you face with deciphering common Windows error codes is that they aren’t always printed in a uniform way. Some will be just a simple number, like 10 or 32 or 4002. But then some will be printed in the form 0×0000ABCD. Which look like gibberish, but is really a number.

The problem here is that there is a mismatch between how people calculate and how machines calculate. Human beings normally calculate using a number system that is known as the decimal system. It has ten digits, from 0 to 9, and all numbers can be represented by these. Indeed, you don’t even need that many digits; only two are enough to represent any number you can think of, however large. In fact, computers think in this way, using only 0 and 1. This number system is known as the binary system.

But the binary system is inefficient when you’re programming or exchanging some information with a computer. Because it has so few digits, the binary system takes a lot of space to represent numbers. For example, the number 179, which needs only three digits to write in the decimal system, needs eight digits in binary: 10110011.

So programmers use the hexadecimal system, which is closely related to the binary system, thus allowing for quick translation between the two systems. You can think of hexadecimal as a compressed form of binary. In addition to the ten digits of decimal, it has six extra digits, A through F, which are equal to 10 through 15 in the decimal system. And this is the system in which common Windows error codes are sometimes expressed.

So now you know why common windows error codes sometimes look funny. The 0x in front of these codes just indicates that it is a hexadecimal number, ‘hex’ for short.

Now what?

Now you get to know what those errors mean. You can either download this nifty little program called Error Messages for Windows (EMW for short) which catalogs all the common Windows error codes from here, or you can go to this very informative Windows Error Lookup page, which arranges all Windows error codes in convenient little bunches.

For example, if you’re saving a large file to your hard disk, the operation may abort with the Windows error code 0×00000070. So you can either translate this into decimal to find that it equals 112 in our familiar system, and then paste it into the EMW window. Or you can go to that URL and look up the hex number there directly. In either case, you shall find that Windows is trying to tell you that the disk became full before the file could be fully committed. So you know what to do now.