Windows Vista will provide you with assistance on and solutions to your
problems with the operating system. You just have to know where to
look. Windows Error Reporting and the Problem Reports and
Solutions features in Windows Vista have been introduced in
order to help users mitigate an entire range of issues. Microsoft
reveals that the Problem Reports and Solutions feature was designed as
an interface working on top of Windows Error Reporting.
Problem Reports and Solutions will deliver information from Windows
Error Reporting to Vista users, but it will also communicate with the
Internet, also from WER. Microsoft has made it very clear what types of
data are collected by Windows Error Reporting. Four different sources
are tapped for information: application errors, handwriting recognition
errors, errors from the Japanese Input Method Editor and Windows Kernel
failures.
The role of Problem Reports and Solutions is to collate software,
driver or operating system issues, deliver information to the Vista
user and then also allow him to specifically check online for solutions
to resolve the reported issues.
“The Problem Reports and Solutions feature in Control Panel helps users
track problem reports and any solution information they have received
from Microsoft. Problem Reports and Solutions only helps the user store
information. All Internet communication related to problem reports and
solutions is handled by Windows Error Reporting, although the display
of solution information in Problem Reports and Solutions uses a Web
browser control,” reads Microsoft's description of the feature.
Lately, however, I have seen reports of issues with the Problem Reports
and Solutions feature itself, problems that Problem Reports and
Solutions cannot seem to fix. The scenario is almost always the same.
The Problem Reports and Solutions identifies and highlights problems,
the user takes the necessary steps to ensure that they have been
resolved, but the feature continues to report the problems. Now what
does that say about the validity of the fixes detected and implemented?
