The information obtained and logged by Dr. Watson is the information needed by technical support groups to diagnose a program error for a computer running Windows. A text file (Drwtsn32.log) is created whenever an error is detected, and can be delivered to support personnel by the method they prefer. You also have the option of creating a crash dump file, which is a binary file that a programmer can load into a debugger.
If a program error occurs, Dr. Watson will start automatically. To start Dr. Watson, click Start, click Run, and then type drwtsn32. To start Dr. Watson from a command prompt, change to the root directory, and then type drwtsn32.
I have heard the complete opposite to this however? saying that its somehow bad for your computer and slows it down drastically?
Anyone with info would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
2006-07-11 11:49:51 · 5 answers · asked by sarah67789 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Security
Dr Watson is a built in tool (actually a debugger) in Windows OSes that automatically starts every time any program does something unexpected and produces an error in the OS enviroment.
It is safe and most of the time, is a "behind the screen" thingy that you wouldn't notice that generates error reports and stores them in a log for technical people (if you take you com to one...and he knows how to find them logs).
But sometimes a corrupt installation of Windows or some other conflicting program/virus/hardware can cause the Dr Watson to go nuts and/or into hyperdrive mode which will spawn multiple instances of the Dr Watson process. Either way it will either slow down or crash your com.
In that case there is 3 ways to go abt it, 1st is to kill the process via Task Manager and then remove whatever offending program/hardware/virus that you just installed/got infected by thru doing uninstalling/online scanning. 2nd is to disable the Dr Watson if it persistently crops up and you can't seems to find anyting wrong (search for "Dr Watson Postmortem errors...tons of ways), 3rd is to re-install the OS.
Cheers!
2006-07-12 00:50:31 · answer #1 · answered by roneo09 2 · 5⤊ 1⤋
Dr. Watson is a built-in tool for debugging programs that crash. It can send error logs to Microsoft and software manufacturers to help them improve their software. It does cause delays in the computer while it's creating the log, but it is not bad for the computer. If you know how to end processes in task manager, you can always go in and end process on it if it is slowing down your computer for too long of a time....but most of the time it takes less than 30 seconds to run.
2006-07-11 11:55:17 · answer #2 · answered by Dave 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The only problem I've ever had with it is when I had it set to write a crash dump file to disk (dumps all of the memory to disk). On a server with 4Gb RAM that's a significant amount of disk space & I didn't realise that was what it had done and spent a while wondering where all the disk space had gone.
2006-07-11 11:57:06 · answer #3 · answered by Quasimojo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Computer Slow
Download and then run startup.exe at:
http://www.mlin.net/startupcpl.shtml......
Can't live without it and windows...
Then disable and/or uninstall whatever u don't need.
Other things to try:
1 - Disk Cleanup (removal of temp files, cookies, etc.)
2 - Defrag
3 - Registry Cleanup (CAN BE VERY RISKY!)
Joe...
2006-07-15 03:29:02 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
damn i get that thing all the time .... i just shut off the computer ... wait and turn back on what is it anyway??? so far everything still works well and it hasn't slowed down ... only problem i have is the grand kids cookie crumbs under the keys ...it crunches when i type.
2006-07-11 12:09:36 · answer #5 · answered by Clyde 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋