Why should I send an error report to Microsoft?

Reports collected via the Microsoft Error Reporting Service are actively used by Microsoft and its partners to improve the reliability of the software you use.

Unfortunately, software has bugs. Even a relatively simple software product today has millions of lines of code with many places for bugs to hide. That is why you still encounter crashes and freeze-ups despite our extensive testing.

Microsoft is committed to learning about and trying to fix the problems in our software.

When you choose to send up an error report, a small snapshot of the state of your application is transferred to Microsoft. This data is used by software engineers to diagnose and fix the problem.

Microsoft Error Reporting is anonymous. As a result, we cannot contact you once a fix is available for a problem you saw. However, fixes are always incorporated into service releases and patches to our products. We encourage you to use the AutoUpdate feature of Windows XP or to regularly visit Microsoft websites like Windows Update and Office Update to keep your products current. Finally if analysis reveals that the error report you sent relates to an error which has already been fixed, the Microsoft Error Reporting Service will direct you to a website with more information.

Patterns in the data collected via the Microsoft Error Reporting service have taught us that a small number of bugs in software account for the majority of the problems that our customers experience. Thanks to error reporting, we are now able to focus our engineering teams at the problems which are being experienced by you the most.

The results of this service have been impressive so far. Error reporting has allowed us to fix a large percentage of the errors in products like Office XP, Windows XP and Visual Studio.NET.

We understand that customers are concerned about their privacy. Therefore, you should know that error reports may contain incidental personal information. However, all data collected by the Microsoft Error Reporting Service is only used for the purpose of improving the reliability of software. We do not use the data for marketing purposes. If you would like more information, please refer to the Microsoft Error Reporting data collection policy.

Please continue to send reports when you see the "Microsoft Error Reporting" dialog. The reports you send are very important.

Thank you,

The Microsoft Error Reporting Team