A configuration assistance manager provides configuration assistance to an operator attempting to configure a configurable system by identifying one or more valid configurations that are nearest to matching a current invalid configuration. In at least one embodiment, the configurable system is configurable via the selective installation of system components, and the manager represents the detected combination of installed system components as a first code word that is compared to a set of second code words corresponding to valid (permitted) combinations of installed components. The comparison may comprise determining the mathematical distances between the first code word and one or more of the second code words. The closest matching valid configurations are identified as those having the smallest comparison distances, and the manager may thus provide detailed instructions for changing from the current invalid configuration to the closest matching configuration(s).