Queation - Dr. Watson

[Guest]

I have just recently been examining my hardrive and found that nearly half of
what is being used is a program called: Dr. Watson. I accessed this program
from a folder with the destination: C:\WINDOWS\System32, and other parts in:
C:\WINDOWS\I386 and C:\WINDOWS. This program uses a total of 59.6 GB. When
I ran the program it displayed the message, "no faults were found." It then
stayed open and performed no other tasks. I am curious as to the purpose of
this program and whether deleting it will greatly affect the performance of
my computer.

This is of concern to me as i cannot afford such a large chunk of my
computer's hardrive being used by something that may or may not be necessary
to its performance.

I would appreciate any help on this topic.

 

[Pennywise]

I have just recently been examining my hardrive and found that nearly half of
what is being used is a program called: Dr. Watson. I accessed this program
from a folder with the destination: C:\WINDOWS\System32, and other parts in:
C:\WINDOWS\I386 and C:\WINDOWS. This program uses a total of 59.6 GB. When
I ran the program it displayed the message, "no faults were found." It then
stayed open and performed no other tasks. I am curious as to the purpose of
this program and whether deleting it will greatly affect the performance of
my computer.

This is of concern to me as i cannot afford such a large chunk of my
computer's hardrive being used by something that may or may not be necessary
to its performance.

I would appreciate any help on this topic.

It's used for debugging purposes and of no use to you.

Start | Run <type in>
drwtsn32
<enter>

UnSelect everything.

Search for .DMP files and delete them, they also are of no use to you.
(These .DMP files can be huge.)

 

[Kayman]

http://www.google.com/search?q=dr.+watson

 

[Tom Hall]

It's used for debugging purposes and of no use to you.

Start | Run <type in>
drwtsn32
<enter>

UnSelect everything.

Search for .DMP files and delete them, they also are of no use to you.
(These .DMP files can be huge.)

Would following the instructions given in this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188296

be a better way of disabling Dr. Watson?

I started another thread about Event ID 26 which seems to be generated here
by Dr. Watson at most (but not all) system shutdowns.

Before I disable Dr. Watson, I'd like to find out why it runs in the first
place.


Tom

 

[Pennywise]

Would following the instructions given in this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188296

be a better way of disabling Dr. Watson?

One of the first things I do on an install is run drwtsn32 and disable
all the DUMP options, it has worked well for me. (no .DMP files)

After reading the article I did go to
Value Name = Auto
Type = String (REG_SZ)
Data Value = 1 or 0. (Default is 1)

and set 1 to 0

The log file (which will still be produced) I have go to my TEMP
directory so it will be deleted on a normal clean up.

I started another thread about Event ID 26 which seems to be generated here
by Dr. Watson at most (but not all) system shutdowns.

Running drwtsn32 and reading the application errors will most likely
show you your problem program.

Before I disable Dr. Watson, I'd like to find out why it runs in the first
place.

Run drwtsn32, select HELP.

If you want to make use of the USER.DMP files you need to setup for
it, - (a second computer (connected by serial cable) is preferred,
especially in your case as it happens during shutdown)
but start here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/debugstart.mspx
Use Google, and knowledge of assembly language helps a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language