Well as you know with software they can tend to crash. When they do you will get a message poping ujp (in Window XP possibly 2000) asking you to send a report to Microsoft.

I'm just wondering what the actual point of this is. Like if Adobe Photoshop crashs and then sends an error report to Microsoft there's nothing they can do to fix it, is there? :unsure:

Mark

Well, depending on how you have error reporting config'd on your system, a FULL dump give microsoft the infromation that they need, a small dump is trash and dosent give them anything to really work with.

The dump tells MS what was loaded into the system and what caused the crash.
this info helps MS change or make a update so that the system dont crash anymore, OR, MS send the details of the crash to the company who caused the fault and they fix it with a patch.

OK the important thing is to stop the crashes.
A few things that you need to do:
Check the motherboard's website for BIOS updates.
Check MS site for updates.
CHeck you have the latest codecs
Check you have updated ALL the drivers on you system for all the hardware - this is a bit tricky as some have to be done before others. and some have to be uninstalled before you update.

Check your system for faults.
Test your harddrive (check manurfactures website)
Test your CPU and RAM (memtest, Crystalmark)
Check the system temps, often this is the cause of crashing.

Another issue is the registry, this happens on PC's that are old (1 year +) or on a system that has had lots of software installed and /or removed

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