|
Joe
MANY thanks for posting this information - those
"requests" were driving me nuts!
David Blocker
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 4:38
PM
Subject: [RBASE-L] - Off subject - Win
XP
This might interest some of you. I got it from one of my
newsletters.
Joe
Why Must XP Constantly
Phone Home?
Windows XP is, in many ways, a big improvement over
its predecessors. It's more stable than 9x/ME and includes useful new
features, such as Remote Desktop (in Pro) and Remote Assistance (in both Home
and Pro) that don't come with Windows 2000. However, probably the most
annoying new thing is the operating system's "co-dependency" issues; it seems
to need to "phone home" (i.e., connect to Microsoft's computers) for something
or another every ten minutes or so.
You'll find a good rant about this
in one of today's Fav Links, but here I want to address just one way this
problem manifests itself that is especially annoying, and what you can do
about it. When a program crashes or "stops responding," you now not only get
an error message, but you also get a dialog box asking if you'd like to report
the error to Microsoft. The stated purpose is so that Microsoft can analyze
information related to the problem, allowing them to know what applications
are causing crashes and to devise fixes. However, the error reporting tool
sends information such as your IP address that could be used to identify you.
Also collected is the digital product ID, which can be used to identify your
license (or determine if you're using pirated software?), and even, in some
cases, your documents.
Now Microsoft promises that the data they
collect will only be used for solving users' problems and that it will never
be used for marketing purposes. Nevertheless, many users are not comfortable
with sending off a message to the "mothership" each time they experience a
problem and are annoyed with having to click the "Do not send" button every
time to prevent it. The good news is that you can turn off this error
reporting "feature" if you want: right click My Computer, select Properties,
select Advanced, select Error Reporting and check the Disable error reporting
box.
Now you no longer have to worry about dealing with your operating
system's compulsion to tell its Big Brothers every time an application gets
out of line, and XP will have one less thing to call home about.
|
