Techie question

Is Dr Watson necessary ? I have just deleted mine as it kept freezing up

Ali...

Of course. He is a neccessary plot device to allow Sherlock to explain his
thought process.

Aries...

very helpful I'm sure LOL

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

I thought it was a diagnostic tool to use when you had a major problem.
Didn't realise it might run in the background. :(

Old Grizzly...

Sherlock will be a bit pi**ed off LOL

Aries...

I guess so LOL

pmj...

That all depends...

pmj...

What do you mean by "deleted" it?

Aries...

sent it to the recyle bin !

The Dr Watson Utility that comes with most Versions of windoze
(& with WinXP Runs Automatically when a Program Crashes) consists

Aries...

Thanks for all that but since I last posted on this subject I've managed to
sort the problem and Delta is no longer freezing.

pmj...

Oh!
Great!
Nice one!
:-)

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

I typed DrWatson in my search in XP, and it found nothing. I then

pmj...

Oh?

That's strange!

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

I think I put a space or perhaps full stop between the r and W.

pmj...

Ah!
Putting a Space in, will give you *different* Results from putting
them both in as one word...

& putting a Dot (Full Stop) will give you different Results again!!!

If you put in a Dot, then you are telling it to find any File with
a File*Name* consisting of (or, more accurately - ending in) "dr"
*&* with a File Extension of (or more accurately - beginning with)
"watson", & there aren't any Files like that, so that's prolly what
you Entered.

If you put in a Space, then it will look for any Files that contain
"dr" *&* "watson", so that will include "dr watson" *&* drwatson

But if you put it all in as one word (no Dot & no Space), then it
will find "drwatson" but *not* "dr watson".

& anyway...
As I mentioned, there are also several bits of the Dr Watson thingy
that don't have either "dr" or "watson" anywhere in the Name!

It *should* have found (at least) the File called drwatson.exe & also,
possibly, drwatson.ex_ (the Compressed Version of it in the i386 Folder)
& (again, possibly) drwatson.log (in the windoze Folder) & possibly
a Shortcut to it in the "Recent" Folder, if you'd Open the Log File up
& looked at it.

searched for just Watson and it came up with just three folders/files:

pmj...

Yep, that will find more, but stillnot all the Dr Watson stuff - some
of it has FileNames such as...

drwtsn32.exe
dwwin.exe
dumprep.exe
&
faultrep.dll

1 Dr Watson File Folder size 0

pmj...

Yep, that's in the User Profile Folder

2 drwatson.exe Application size 28 KB
3 drwatson.exe " " " but different location.

pmj...

That was prolly a backup/Saved Version of it.

But then, I have never tried to delete my Dr Watson. :)

pmj...

LOL!
Yep - It's not usually a good idea to just Delete stuff, without
knowing (or finding out) what it actually *is* & what it's for.

I bet you're pleased about that?
Saves you having to read all that "interesting" stuff on Sites
like the M$KB!!!
:-)

I looked at run:services and enabled some stuff there. I also went to

pmj...

*En*Abled?
Or DisAbled stuff?

Remember, you don't want to have too many (un-necessary) Services
Running - not only do they use up some of the Resources such as
RAM (Memory) & CPU Processor Cycles/Time, but many Services Open
up & Listen on various ports, which means that your Firewall then
has to work extra time, Blocking all the unwanted Incoming Connection
Attempts.

control panel and deleted a lot of apps I never use. I ran CCleaner and

pmj...

Yep, that's a good idea.
(well, that's not *Deleting* them as such, is it?...
It's UnInstalling them, (if you used the Add & remove Programs Control
Panel Applet thingy) which is needed, rather than just Deleting the
Files, cos an Installed Application also puts Entries in the Registry
as well.

Search and Destroy, did a complete virus scan, and defrag. I also went to

pmj...

Yep, all of those things *can* lead to various Conflicts, Crashes
& Hanging (& "Freezing"), if there's anything Malicious that has
got onto your PC.

pmj...

A Fragmented Hard Drive won't normally be causing much "Hanging"
&/or "Freezing", but yes, it's always a good idea to keep the Hard
Drive(s) Defragmented, for general efficiency reasons.

My Computer/ C drive/ properties/ and did a disk cleanup and checked the

pmj...

Yep!
& that!

volume for erros - took breath LOL

pmj...

I should think so!
You have been a very busy person, haven't you?
:-)

Here are some screen grabs I looked into at the time.

pmj...

Ah yes!
the "Event Viewer"!
That's always useful for seeing what's been happening...
Notice in the "Application" Event Log, there are several Entries
(which were actually put there by the Dr Watson thingy) about
"Application Error" & "Application Hang" ?

Those things can give some useful Info, sometimes, to help point
to what might be causing the probs.

Another thing that may have caused the freezing was something I'd forgotten
about. A friend of mine had bought a very cheap digital camera and could
not get the pictures from it onto his pc, so he asked me to look at it for
him. That meant I had to install the drivers etc and download the pics. I

pmj...

Oh, oh...
Yep, *some* Digital Cameras do expect you to Install some kind
of their own weird, special Drivers (& they are usually "UnSigned"
Drivers as well) & they can often cause all sorts of probs.
:-(

There's really no need for special Drivers for a Digital Camera -
any Digital Camera *ought* to be able to use the standard Drivers
(called USB Mass Storage Device Drivers) that come built-in with WinXP.

Ali...

Jbex has a digital camera that definitely can't use the USB Mass Storage
Device drivers, 'cos it connects via the serial (RS-232) port, but it also
allows rather more to be done by computer control than just downloading (or
uploading) files.
Setting the clock (synched to the computer clock), setting exposure times/f
numbers, etc., and taking pictures at the click of a mouse, for instance.
Do standard USB MSD drivers do that?

had a lot of problems with it as the camera seems more like a toy than a
serious camera, really cheap and nasty and of an unheard of make!

pmj...

Yep, I had one likem that - it cost less than a tenner!

It was a nuisance.
It did actually work OK, but it had no Memory Card (only it's own
built-in Memory), so you *had* to Downlaod the Pics off it to the PC,
cos it lost them all, every time the battery went flat!

That needed those silly Drivers, instead of using the built-in
WinXP ones.

So ..... I uninstalled all pertaining to that, did another ccleaner,
rebooted and all seems to be running really smoothly now and has been all
afternoon and this evening. So it seems one way or t'other I've cured the

pmj...

Great!!!

pmj...

Yep!
Sounds like it *may* possibly have been the Drivers (&/or Software)
for that Camera then?

Aries...

Probably, but doing a Spring Clean of Delta was a good thing to do anyway
and I learned a lot doing it :)

problem. :)

of several different parts.

So it's actually very difficult to completely remove it.

It's unlikely that the Dr Watson Utility (or any of it's components)
is actually *causing* the Freezing - it's *far* more likely that what
you are seeing is the Response of the Dr Watson Utility *to* the
Crash/Freeze - so what you need to do is to use the Dr Watson Utility
to find out what's actually *causing* the prob in the first place.

Aries...

So what is like to be the cause of the crashes ? What would I need to find
out to discover that?

Flyiñg Ñuñ 2°°6 +...

Dr Watson ? LOL

my lappy????