Solve errors with problem reporting

If you’ve had PC problems but believe that clicking that Send information to Microsoft button is a waste of time, then you may be in for a surprise. Windows Error Reporting has been used to solve hundreds of driver and software issues, helping thousands of PC owners worldwide.

The evidence for the usefulness of error reporting is plain to see. Vast amounts of the fixes in the new Service Pack 1 update, which has helped make Windows Vista even faster and more reliable, started life as reported issues from individual’s computers. From these reports Microsoft has built up a huge database of known issues, which is continuing to grow.

Reporting your issues to Microsoft isn’t just an altruistic act. When the details of your problem are sent they are checked against the database of known faults, and if a solution is available then it’s sent back immediately. If there isn’t currently a solution then the problem is logged by Microsoft– and if it occurs often enough then its experts will get to work on a solution.

Sending information

This is an opt-in service and to take advantage of the online reporting system you have to agree to allow your information to be sent to Microsoft over the web. When you encounter a problem you will be prompted to send information, but if you don’t want to be asked each time, you can set a rule for reports to be sent automatically in the Problem Reports and Solutions menu.

When an error is found on your computer, Windows Vista will automatically log the details into Problem Reports and Solutions. You can access this at any time by searching for ‘Problem’ in Start Search. From here you can find all the recent errors that have affected your PC, see the root cause and search for known solutions in the Microsoft database. You can also trace every problem that your computer has encountered since the dawn of time (or just since you last clicked the clear button in the Problem window), the status of any reports and whether any solutions have been found.

This type of error reporting has already resulted in great successes for Windows Vista. Problems with drivers were resolved quickly thanks to information gained from the error reporting scheme, and details recently emerged of how nVidia drivers caused 30 per cent of all crashes after the release of Windows Vista. The fixes which ensued led to those problems being resolved quickly.

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Solve your PC problems

Use the error-reporting tool to find solutions

PROBLEM-SOLVER Whenever a program stops working it’s logged in the Problem Reports and Solutions section of Windows Vista. This automatically connects to the internet in order to find solutions to your software problems, and if it finds any fixes or advice it will list them here.

WHAT'S GOING ON Click on See problems to check and you’ll see a list of current issues. If you click on Check for solutions Windows Vista will connect to Microsoft’s giant database to see if any fixes have been identified.

PLENTY OF PROBLEMS By default Windows Vista will check for solutions to all logged problems, not just your most recent. You’ll see this progress bar as it performs the checks, and if any new solutions have been found you’ll have the opportunity to fix them.

WHOLE LOTTA HISTORY Click on View problem history and you can see a list of every problem since you installed Windows Vista (or at least, since you last hit the Clear link). You can also see whether or not the problems have been reported to Microsoft.

SET UP If you’re not happy having solutions found automatically, or you want to exclude some programs from the reporting process (useful for some beta or experimental software) then you can do this from the Change settings menu.

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