Computer Doctor

Time to visit the doctor? No, I'm not starting to write medical articles. I know some think that computers are just boxes with little men inside. Well most of us have a doctor in our computer and probably didn't know it. This month I want to tell you about Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson is a program that comes preinstalled with Microsoft operating systems.

I don't know if the creator of this program was a Sherlock Holmes fan or not, but it does do a fair job of finding "clues". To start this program, simply click on the Start button, followed by Run. Type the word drwatson and click OK. The program starts and runs in the background. You will notice an icon down in the system tray. The system tray is down by the "clock".

Once Dr. Watson is running, try and duplicate the program fault. When Dr. Watson detects a fault, it collects detailed information about the state of your operating system at the time of a program fault. Dr. Watson intercepts the software faults, identifies the software that faulted, and then provides a detailed description of the cause. The information that Dr. Watson collects when it detects a program fault can be useful when contacting technical support.

If you have an intermittent problem, you can have Dr. Watson load automatically. To do this, create a shortcut to Drwatson.exe in the Startup folder. With Dr. Watson starting up automatically, it will be easier to catch the program fault that is hard to reproduce. Once you correct the problem, simply delete the shortcut from the Startup folder to save resources.

Dr. Watson works best on reproducible problems. It doesn't work if the computer is "locking" up or "freezes". It only helps with program errors or faults.

While Dr. Watson may not make you feel like Sherlock Holmes, it just might help you become a better sleuth when troubleshooting that next computer problem.

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