Disabling error reporting in Windows XP

Everything seems to be going well. You have a couple of programs open, and happily going thru your normal computing tasks. After a few minutes, you sit back, aghast — a window suddenly appeared, screaming:

“Application has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please tell Microsoft about this problem.”

Second place from the Office Assistant, this error reporting "feature" is one of the foulest things known to humankind. It’s beyond me how Microsoft expects anyone to happily click Send Error Report, and believe that they will make Windows a better place.

"But it only appears when a program crashes!" you can almost hear Microsoft explain. Golly wow. And that really never happens.

To those who have also reached the limits of their patience, here is a corking way to disable error reporting:

  1. Open your Control Panel.
  2. Select System (doubleclick).

  3. The System Properties window will appear. Select the Advanced tab.
  4. Click the Error Reporting button.

  5. Select Disable Error Reporting. Optionally, you can also check But notify me when Critical Errors Occur.

Adios, error reports!

11 thoughts on “Disabling error reporting in Windows XP”

  1. I disabled error reporting and am still having the same problem. I open my pictures and view maybe 1 or 2 folders then I get an error report. After disabling it this is what happens: Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost. (well duh! I don’t have much choice but to close it) I am hating windows explorer right now. Please help.

  2. It’s beyond me how Microsoft expects anyone to happily click Send Error Report, and believe that they will make Windows a better place.

  3. Thanks for this. I really like XP but this error reporting thing is so annoying. Thankfully, you’ve been able to help me out a lot :D

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *