14 DAY TRIAL // 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?