[Alexskichamb]

After ending a non-responsive program, I often get an error message that Dr. Watson Post Mortem Debugger has encountered an error and needs to quit. I know that Dr. Watson is a software utility that helps log errors after a windows program encounters an error, how can I fix this so that I dont get an error message?

[Elvandil]

With SP2 came some problems with Dr. Watson. It's bad enough that he starts snooping around whenever there is an error, pushing an already unstable system over the edge sometimes, but it appears that there is sometimes an error in Dr. Watson, prompting yet another clone of Dr. Watson to start.

None of this does most of us any good. And most people don't use the debugger, anyway. If you want to disable him, run regedit.

Find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug
and change the value of Auto to "0" including the quotes. It is probably "1" now.

If you'd rather just control what the good Dr. does when there is an error, Run: drwtsn32
and set the options.

[Alexskichamb]

ok great thanx so i guess there is no real solution o well

[Elvandil]

If you really want to debug, get "Debugging Tools for Windows" and download the 200 megs of symbols (though you can use the Microsoft Symbol Server and get them online as needed):

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtoo...g/default.mspx

If you prefer not to download all the symbols, set this as the path to symbols and they will be downloaded as needed:

SRV*c:\websymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

(assuming you want them in a folder called "C:\websymbols").

[BevAnne]

I got the same pop-up and upgraded at the following location:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

I don't know if it fixed it or not, but I haven't had another pop-up. If that doesn't work, you could just disable de-bugging.

[pcgotbugs]

download, install, update and run spybot 1.3 http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
and then download, install, update and run pest patrol.
http://www.pestpatrol.com/
reboot and viola!
at least thats what i did this morning to resolve the Dr. Watson Post Mortem Debugger problem that was plaguing a friends pc after installing xp sp2.
hope this helps.

[SteedaChaos]

Originally Posted by pcgotbugs

download, install, update and run spybot 1.3 http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
and then download, install, update and run pest patrol.
http://www.pestpatrol.com/
reboot and viola!

I had to take this action, i tried the disabling route and the update neither which succeeded, but after the sweeps all is well and faster internet page load-ups, way better results than just Ad-aware.

[Cookiegal]

Hi SteedaChaos,

I was just wondering why you posted to a thread that is two years old?

In any event, welcome aboard!

[John Burns]

Originally Posted by SteedaChaos

I had to take this action, i tried the disabling route and the update neither which succeeded, but after the sweeps all is well and faster internet page load-ups, way better results than just Ad-aware.

I'm curious - did that have to do with ridding your pc of spyware or with Dr. Watson (the original question)???

[SteedaChaos]

2 years old! Well that's me always behind with updating. Yea i've installed SP2 before but either got nailed by this issue or my dial-up software would freeze along with other apps so i'd restore to before the installation. At first i was going to be a good samaritian on this 2nd comp and use anti-virus, keep up on Up-dates but got aggravated with the on-slaught of more issues in true form as my first comp.

But now came the point in internet surfing i couldn't put off the SP2 any longer and i found this thread 3rd result down on Google search. I am not alone there are others who still resist SP2 i will inform them of this.

[SteedaChaos]

Originally Posted by John Burns

I'm curious - did that have to do with ridding your pc of spyware or with Dr. Watson (the original question)???

I not sure, i was looking for something to try, after installing SP2. i couldn't get into any apps and Dr Watson error would pop up freezing everything if i tried, even after i set value to 0 another de-bug warning box would pop-up, but after the spyware sweeps i could open/go into anything so i guess it was spyware issues.

[LauraMJ]

The majority of problems people experience when installing SP2 occurs because of spyware or illegal programs on their computer. If your computer is "clean" then you should not have any problems with installing SP2.

[redback71]

This worked for me.

XviD.dll freezes/crashes and causes Windows Explorer to close
This problem usually occurs when you're browsing a folder containing XviD videos and Explorer tries to create thumbnail previews of the videos using an outdated version of the XviD codec that's installed. When it fails you get an error message about Explorer encountering a problem with xvid.dll and having to close down (Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close).

As the xvid.dll file hasn't been used for quite some time its presence on your system suggests that you've still got an outdated version of the XviD codec installed. Just installing the latest version of the XviD codec over the old one won't fix the problem as it doesn't remove the old files and registry settings. You first need to uninstall all previous versions of the XviD codec and verify that the problem goes away. Then you should install the latest version of the XviD codec