Dr. Watson is an application

debugger A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to software testing, test and debugging, debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the pr ...

included with the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. It may be named drwatson.exe, drwtsn32.exe or dwwin.exe, depending on the version of Windows.

Overview

The tool is named after

Doctor Watson John H. Watson, known as Dr. Watson, is a fictional character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson first appeared in the novel ''A Study in Scarlet'' (1887). The last work by Doyle fe ...

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...

fame, the idea being that it would collect error information (

symptom Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an illness, injury, or condition. A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature than normal, raised or lowered blood pressure or an abnormality showin ...

s) following a

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

crash. The use of the word "Watson" has since been expanded to include general end-user feedback services. The original name of this diagnostic tool was "Sherlock". The information obtained and logged by Dr. Watson is the information needed by technical support personnel to diagnose a program error for a computer running Windows. A text file (usually drwtsn32.log) is created whenever an error is detected, and can be delivered to support personnel by the method they prefer. A crash dump file can also be created, which is a binary file that a programmer can load into a debugger. Dr. Watson can be made to generate more exacting information for debugging purposes if the appropriate ''symbol files'' are installed and the symbol search path (

environment variable An environment variable is a dynamic-named value that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer. They are part of the environment in which a process runs. For example, a running process can query the value of the TEMP env ...

) is set. When a program error occurs in Windows, the system searches for a program ''error handler''. A program error handler deals with errors as they arise during the running of a program. If the system does not find a program error handler, the system verifies that the program is not currently being debugged and considers the error to be unhandled. The system then processes unhandled errors by looking in the

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

for a ''program error debugger'' for which Dr. Watson is the default. A third-party debugger can also be used in place of Dr. Watson. The Watcom C Compiler includes a similar crash-analysis tool named "Dr. Watcom". Beginning with

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

, Dr. Watson (drwtsn32.exe) was extended with (dwwin.exe) "

Problem Reports and Solutions Windows Error Reporting (WER) (codenamed Watson) is a crash reporting technology introduced by Microsoft with Windows XP and included in later Windows versions and Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0. Not to be confused with the Dr. Watson debugging ...

". On some versions of Windows the older version (drwatson.exe) may be available by typing "drwatson.exe" into the command prompt box or in the 'Search programs and files' box in the

Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

in Windows 7.

References

External links

Kirk Glerum and Mike Hollinshead - Watson (what happens when your system crashes?)

How to disable Dr. Watson for Windows
Windows components Windows administration {{Windows-stub

Overview

See also

References

External links