|
XP puts up that annoying BSOD (blue screen of
death) and the computer is either restarted or you have to turn it off and back
on. Bet you get the following message from time to time: "The system has
recovered from a serious error" message from time to time with two buttons:
"Send Error Report" and "Don't Send" regarding sending the report to Microsoft.
The error message appears when an application runs into a problem it can't
handle. When this happens, XP stops the app and the error report prompt appears
so you can send the error report to Microsoft if you're connected to the
Internet. In the case of hardware or a
driver (software managing hardware) attempts something that could cause
problems, XP puts up that annoying BSOD (blue screen of death) and the computer
is either restarted or you have to turn it off and back on. System error reports
go to the Microsoft Online Crash Analysis Web site, aka MOCA. Go figure - the
Web site drops the 'M' in the URL.
When one of them error report windows pops up
and you decide to let it send a report to Microsoft, be sure you're connected to
the Internet before hitting the "Send Error Report" button. Behind the scenes,
XP creates a short message describing the error and provides additional
information such as operating system version, failure type, language, cause of
the problem, etc. to help Microsoft resolve the problem. The message is
encrypted.
In the error report window, there is a link
"click here" for seeing what the data report contains. After you send the
report, you'll get a message from MOCA with the steps on how to solve the
problem and other information depending on the problem. Such information could
be links to downloading updated drivers and how to prevent the problem from
happening again.
What about when getting errors from a
non-Microsoft application or hardware? MOCA reports these errors to the company
behind the application or device, so it can be helpful to send these forward. So
those of you who never send non-Microsoft-related errors might want to
reconsider.
You can also use MOCA to track errors when you
get BSODed. This Microsoft Knowledgebase article shows how to use error
reporting.
Many people don't use the reporting at all
because of privacy concerns. We've heard plenty of jokes about how Microsoft
knows everything about everyone who has a computer. You can read Microsoft's
error privacy information to get exact details on what Microsoft learns about
your computer when getting such reports.
Error reporting is not just for Microsoft, but
pays off for you since it can help reduce the problems with your computer when
you get the error resolution messages back from MOCA. You can turn off error
reporting, but I don't recommend it.
Some saud they've never received resolutions to
their problems when submitting an error report. I don't know if this happened or
not, but it may not be obvious that Microsoft is providing a possible solution.
I got an error after writing this report and
submitted it to Microsoft. After it finished, the following window appeared.
Click on "more information" to get details about the problem and a possible
solution. When I clicked on it, it takes me to the Microsoft Online Analysis Web
page and provides the following information.
Clicking on "Word Quits..." takes me to a
knowledgebase article for details. Some problems probably have multiple possible
solutions and there would be a bulleted list of other knowledgebase articles.
Maybe instead of "more information," it would
be better for the link to say, "More information and possible resolution." "More
information" might lead people to believe it's tech speak about the problem and
people don't have time or interest to read that, so they close the box instead
of clicking on it to see what is really behind the link. I've been guilty of
that before.
|
