Recipe 6.14. Disabling Error Reporting

Problem

Whenever Windows encounters an unrecoverable error, it asks whether you want to report the error to Microsoft. You don't want to send information to Microsoft, and so want to disable the error reporting notice.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

Right-click My Computer and choose Properties. The System Properties dialog box opens.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the Error Reporting button.
Select the button next to Disable error reporting.
Check the box next to "But notify me when critical errors occur." That way, you'll still be notified when a critical error occurs, but you won't be prompted to send the error report to Microsoft.
Click OK.

Figure 6-9. When turning off error reporting, make sure that you tell XP to notify you when critical errors occur, or else you might not know when applications crash or you run into other problems

If you'd like, you can enable error reporting for some applications and disable it for others. You can, for example, enable error reporting for critical errors having to do with XP itself but not applications, or you can enable error reporting for applications on a case-by-case basis. To do this, from the screen pictured in Figure 6-9:

Select the Enable error reporting button.
Check the box next to Windows operating system if you want to enable error reporting for XP itself. Check the box next to Programs if you want to enable error reporting for applications.
To turn error reporting on and off for individual applications, click Choose Programs. The Choose Programs dialog box, shown in Figure 6-10, appears. To specify programs for which you want to enable error reporting, click the Add button in the top pane and browse for the program. To specify programs for which you want to disable error reporting, click the Add button in the bottom pane and browse for the program. Click OK and then OK again.

Figure 6-10. Select programs for which you want to enable and disable error reporting

Using the Registry

To disable error reporting, open the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting and edit the DoReport value to 0. Exit the Registry. You may need to reboot in order for the setting to take effect. Edit the value to 1 to enable error reporting.

You can also use the Registry to turn off error reporting for applications and XP itself on a case-by-case basis. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting. Then:

To disable error reporting for Microsoft applications, edit the IncludeMicrosoftApps value to 0.
To disable error reporting for Windows components, edit the IncludeWindowsApps value to 0.
To exclude any individual application from error reporting, create a new DWORD value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\ExclusionList, and give it the executable name of the application you want to exclude, for example, Notepad.exe. Don't include the path; just use the executable name.
To use error reporting for any individual application, create a new DWORD value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\InclusionList, and give it the executable name of the application that you want to use error reporting, for example, Notepad.exe. Don't include the path; just use the executable name.
Exit the Registry. You may have to reboot in order for the changes to take effect.

Discussion

Windows Error Reporting (WER) is used to help Microsoft and other developers fix bugs in their programs. If you send an error report after a program crashes, you're essentially sending a snapshot of your system to Microsoft at the time of the crash. The information is incorporated into a database that includes all the other crash reports that Microsoft has received, and that information is then made available to developers.

By default, error reports don't contain any identifying information about you or your system, except for what might be inadvertently found on the stack, which is an area of memory used by executing programs and that is included in the crash reports. The stack can contain personal information, depending on what was being done on your computer at the time of the crash. For example, it could potentially reveal your credit card number, the web site you were visiting, and emails you've written. However, developers do not get your user name, machine name, or Registry information. Developers that use WER are legally bound to keep any information they find private.

If you're exceedingly worried about your privacy, you'll want to turn off error reporting, although no instances of private information being used from it have yet been found.