Screenshot or It Didn’t Happen: Why Install Notes Save Your Sanity

 

There’s nothing quite like finishing a hardware install and thinking, “I’ll remember how I set this up.” Spoiler alert: you won’t. That’s where documenting installation details comes in—especially screenshots. 

In my recent Ubiquiti PowerWave radio deployment, every screen grab became a tiny insurance policy against future confusion. Instead of relying on memory (which fades faster than a 5 GHz signal in a concrete building), I captured exactly what the device looked like when everything was working.

Screenshots are especially valuable with gear like Ubiquiti radios, where settings can be buried three menus deep and labeled just differently enough to make you question your life choices. By documenting things like firmware versions, link status, frequencies, power levels, and alignment screens, you create a visual baseline. When something breaks later—and it will—you have a known-good reference instead of guessing what “normal” used to look like.

Another big win is troubleshooting and support. When you open a ticket or loop in another tech, screenshots instantly bring anyone up to speed. Instead of long explanations like “the link was green-ish but only on Tuesdays,” you can just attach proof. In the case of PowerWave radios, having screenshots from the install makes it much easier to spot what changed: a channel width, a DFS event, or a firmware update that quietly flipped a setting behind your back.

Finally, good documentation is a gift to your future self—and to anyone else who has to touch the system later. Whether that’s six months from now during a storm-induced outage or two years later when someone asks, “How was this originally configured?”, your screenshots tell the story. Taking a few extra minutes during the install can save hours of head-scratching later. In short: document early, screenshot often, and let your past self do your future self a solid.

---