Maintaining Desktop Health : Understanding Windows Error Reporting (part 4) - Using the Problem Reports And Solutions Control Panel

7. Using the Problem Reports And Solutions Control Panel

This section describes the Problem Reports And Solutions Control Panel. When you open the Problem Reports And Solutions Control Panel, the solutions overview page is displayed as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Problem Reports And Solutions Control Panel.

The main pane of the solutions overview shows responses that have been received for previously reported problems. The Solutions To Install section will list any updates that can be installed to address an issue. The Information About Other Problems section will list any information, such as Knowledge Base articles, that may help resolve an issue. Use the items in the Tasks pane on the left to further explore the errors that have been reported, as explained in the following sections.

Check For New Solutions

Clicking the Check for new solutions link will force WER to check for solutions to previously reported issues that had no solution at that time as well as unsent issues. If a new solution is received from the Watson servers, it will appear in the main pane of the solutions overview. If a new solution is received at the time the problem event occurs, the response dialog that is displayed will depend upon the priority of the response. There are three levels of response priority that are set by the developers working with the Watson back-end servers:

• Low priority

• Medium priority

• High priority

Low-Priority Response

Low-priority responses do not present a dialog. The response will be displayed in either the Solutions To Install section or the Information About Other Problems section on the main page of Problem Reports And Solutions.

Medium-Priority Response

Medium-priority responses display a System Tray icon and balloon notification. If you click the notification or the System Tray icon, a formatted response will be opened in Problem Reports And Solutions.

High-Priority Response

High-priority responses immediately open the formatted response in Problem Reports And Solutions.

Response Notification

For medium- and high-priority responses, a notification is displayed in Problem Reports And Solutions that describes the problem and provides more information.

No New Solution Found

If a previously checked problem is checked again for a solution, but a new solution is not found, a dialog saying “No new solutions found: Please check for solutions again later” will be displayed.

See Problems To Check

The See Problems To Check link on the Problems And Solutions Task pane opens the Check For Solutions To These Problems window that displays a list of problems that have not been checked for a solution (see Figure 3). In this window, you can select which problems to check for a solution and which to omit. Users can also select Check Again For Solutions To Other Problems to cause WER to check previously checked problems where a solution was not found.

Figure 3. The Check For Solutions To These Problems window.

Each listed problem has a shortcut menu that you can use to delete the problem, view problem details, or group the problem among other listed problems.

The Choose The Information To Send When A Problem Occurs link in the Problems and Solutions menu opens a dialog saying “Do you want to automatically send more information about unsolved problems?” that allows you to either automatically send safe additional information requested by the Watson back-end servers or to be asked each time the additional data is requested. If you choose to automatically send safe data, you will still be prompted when other data is requested.

View Problem History

The View problem history link in the Problems and Solutions menu switches to a window that lists a history of problems that have occurred on the computer (Figure 4). By default, a user will see their own history of problems. If the user is an administrator, they will also be able to see system-level problems.

Figure 4. The View Problem History window.

Each listed problem has a shortcut menu that you can use to check for a solution, delete the problem, view the solution, view the problem details, or group the problem among other listed problems.

Change Settings

The Change Settings link in the Problems And Solutions Tasks pane switches to the Choose How To Check For Solutions To Computer Problems window shown in Figure 5. From this window, you can select the desired Opt In option, either to check for solutions automatically (Opted In) or prompt for consent to check for a solution (Not Opted In).

The WER dialogs that a user sees when a failure occurs depend upon the Opt In option selected in the Choose How To Check For Solutions To Computer Problems window.

Figure 5. The Choose How To Check for Solutions To Computer Problems window.

If you chose to automatically check for solutions during installation, then the Check For Solutions utomatically (Recommended) option is selected.

Advanced Settings

Advanced Settings (which you can open by opening Problem Reports And Solutions, clicking Change Settings, and then clicking Advanced Settings) switches to the Advanced Settings For Problem Reporting window, where you can configure more advanced WER options. You can configure the options shown in Table 2 from the Advanced Settings For Problem Reporting window.