How to Prevent the "Please tell Microsoft about this problem" Dialog Boxes

Question

We have an error that we can't seem to find and don't have the need/resources to try and track it down. What we do need to do is just keep the freaking "Please tell Microsoft about this problem" dialog boxes from cluttering up the server.

It is from an MS-Access error (we think) but I can't find where Access is installed (I don't think it is); there is no MS Office directory on any of the drives.

If we could just stop the dialog boxes from appearing that would be great.

Thanks.

Spec: Window Server 2003 sp2

Answer 1

Well, I would try and figure out what application is using Access. Not knowing what is running is a real issue, especially when it is having unhandled exceptions!

As far as just disabling? Try:

Right click 'My Computer'

left click 'Properties'

left click 'Advanced' tab

left click 'Error Reporting' (near bottom)

left click 'Disable error reporting'

Answer 2

From http://www.codeproject.com/KB/exception/UnhandledExceptionClass.aspx:

If you also want to disable the Windows “Send Error Report” dialog on your computer, right-click on the “My Computer” icon, select “Properties”, switch to the “Advanced” tab, and click on the “Error Reporting” button. In the Options dialog, select the “Disable error reporting” radio button:

Compare also http://www.codeproject.com/KB/exception/ExceptionHandling.aspx for general .NET Exception Handling sanity.

Answer 3

It's called the Windows Error Reporting Dialog. You can disable it by following these instructions:

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Disable-Error-Reporting-Windows-XP-Server-2003.html

However, I would be concerned with why you are getting those error messages. You are just concealing a problem which could be very bad.

Answer 4

Since I see three different people posted instructions on how to disable the dialog on their own machine, I'll post this again as an answer instead of just a comment:

They don't want to do that on their customer's machines, because that will disable any application from using the dialog. They just want to prevent it from coming up for their application.

Answer 5

I don't think you realize jusy how serious this error might be. These errors pop up under severe conditions like buffer overflows, null pointer dereferences, division by zero errors, etc. Given that you mentioned that this runs on a server, you potentially (depending on your situation) have a network facing, easily exploitable program!

As others have suggested, you can turn off error-reporting system wide, or you can use the SetErrorMode API to disable it for just your application, but again I would strongly advise to investigate and fix the problem at its root!

Answer 6

I have a question for the original poster:

What, exactly, leads you to think that MS Access is causing the issue?

Answer 7

It's not concealing anything, if a program crashes windows will still tell you. The difference is that it won't compile a core dump and try to send it to microsoft for you. It's very useful to disable this garbage.

Answer 8

When working in .net, you can catch all unhandled exceptions (which is what causes this message). But I'm not aware of a way to do the same in Access.

http://devcity.net/Articles/60/1/unhandled_exceptions.aspx