2000 firebird v6 automatic, radio and door windows
First of all, even though it's a very common term for electrical problems, you probably are not looking for a short. A short is where a circuit is not following the intended path to where the power is intended to go, and is taking a short cut (short). A true short will cause blown fuses, tripped circuit breakers, smoke, melted wire insulation, etc. What you are probably looking for is an "open" where the path of flow is interrupted. It's like there is a bridge out on your normal drive to work, so you can't get through to your destination.To find the problem, you need to dig for clues. Does the problem happen together? You mention radio and windows... do they both stop at the same time? The first place to look is the fuse box. It's probably under the dash, open the driver door and look somewhere near the hood latch just below the dash. If there is a cover to remove, there will usually be a chart showing the layout and which fuses go to which circuits. You can pull the power window fuse and also the radio fuse and visually check them. Also, the switches for the power windows are a common problem on these cars, so you can try to pop out a switch and short across the terminals to bypass the switch and see if the window rolls up, then you know you have a bad switch. You would short from the middle terminal out to one of the outer terminals at a time, one is for up, one is for down.