Hardware·18,997 discussions

“Your computer has just recovered from a serious problem”

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Or words to that effect. Microsoft invited me to send a report of the problem which would include details of my hardware and software, and might include personal information.

Is this just another way to trick me into revealing if my copy of Windows XP is legitimate? I suspect so. I did not send the report and my computer appears to be functioning normally.

Have any of you received a similar message? Is MS just invading my privacy again?

Topic

Some program had to restart

In reply to “Your computer has just recovered from a serious problem”

An application (or Windows) crashes. It happens every now and then. In most cases, a “mini dump” is created, which can be analyzed to find out what caused the problem.

Usually, there’s a link where you can see what information and files are included in the crach report.

It is possible that some private data could be included in this report, for instance a document that was open when word or excel crashed may be included…

I don’t think Microsoft uses these reports for any bad purpose, but, in most cases I don’t allow these reports to be sent.

I send them.

In reply to Some program had to restart

About one time out of five I’ll get an IE windows with a suggested cause and solution.

Same here…

In reply to I send them.

some of those suggested fixes have even been useful.

I send them about 25% of the time….

In reply to I send them.

It sort of depends on what I was doing when it crashed. If it’s something that I know I probably caused 🙂 or because of terminating a program that was “not responding” or something like that, I don’t bother sending them.

Nah…

In reply to “Your computer has just recovered from a serious problem”

They already know you’re mooching. They just want to know how well their anti-moocher logic bomb worked.

Srsly though, I think they get too many of those reports to be even able to look at your private parts, even if they were interested. I think it’s safe to send, they’d have to violate their privacy policy to do anything about you, and that would be a problem.
After all, for corporate clients it would mean they’d have to worry about company secrets getting leached off by M$, it’d be a hassle.
And I really don’t think they have the means to sift through it all (probably millions of those reports, every day) closely enough for it to be a danger.

No privacy

In reply to Nah…

There was a link to details of their privacy policy in this situation. They can, as I said, read the hardware and software on the computer, and also share information with other third parties. If I get this again I will make a point of saving the “privacy” policy.”

There appears to be nothing wrong with the computer because I have not seen this warning again and the computer is functioning normally.

often is like that.

In reply to No privacy

A one-off crash can just be the result of unfortunate circumstances.
If something important seems to cause problems a lot then I’d recommend sending, sometimes you get the fix, if there is one. And of course, sometimes the fix won’t be made if it isn’t reported.
But you can always try just updating said program.

I should have elaborated

In reply to often is like that.

This was not the usual error report when a program stops responding for example. I don’t have a problem sending those. But this was totally different. It appeared when I booted up the computer and before I had opened any programs.

Sounds like a it fixed a bootup problem

In reply to I should have elaborated

That’s then probably a one-off, but you could do a chkdsk to see if the drive is going. Coz, that’s a drag.

chkdsk

In reply to Sounds like a it fixed a bootup problem

I had no idea that this facility was available in XP. However I have run it and it fixed something and then disappeared.

My general philosophy of life includes: Ask a question and you will learn something. I have learned something.

Are there any other DOS type commands that are available in XP? I know of msconfig and that’s about it.

Plenty…

In reply to chkdsk

Fdisk, Format, netsh, ipconfig etc. etc. …
In fact I just now looked in the Win7 start button search (that replaced Run), and almost all those I mentioned are still there. Fdisk isn’t though.

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