How to enable or disable Error Reporting Service on Windows 10 PC

Windows 10 has an in-built feature “Error Reporting service” that helps in coordinating issues between Microsoft and Windows users. The experts have developed this tool to receive bugs-report from users PC so that they start working on the issue immediately afterward. Their prime focus is to make sure that your PC runs smoothly and optimally. Though this tool comes as pre-enabled on Windows 10 devices, we explore ways to either enable or disable Error Reporting Service on your PC.

Windows Error Report looks for hardware as well as software anomalies on your computer and if discovered will pass on the relevant information to Microsoft. The company, after receiving the entails, start working on the solutions. As soon as they discover the core fault, provide the troubleshooting guide to the users. While doing so, they capture some basic details like name, date and time of the error, OS version, etc. Today, in this tutorial, we depict two different workarounds to enable or disable Error Reporting Service on Windows 10 PC.

Should one turn off this service

The main reasons which force windows users to often disable Error Reporting service are due to privacy concerns or low disk spaces. If turned on, this provides dual benefits to both Microsoft as well as Windows users. The company looks over several errors report and develop an advanced algorithm to deal with these bugs. In this way, they provide a better user experience based on issues under these reports.

Before proceeding to workarounds, one should be certain whether the above service is enabled or disabled. To do so, follow these easy steps-

1. Navigate to the following address on your PC- Control Panel > System and Security > Security and Maintenance.
2. Here, search for the report issues. In general, this should display “ON” if you haven’t configured the same at some earlier point.

Here’s how to enable or disable Window 10 Error Reporting Service

You may turn on or off this service via two different workarounds and they are-

1. Using Windows Services
2. Via Registry Editor 

Note: The Error reporting service of Windows 10 appears under Security & Maintenance while for earlier versions, it lies under Action Center.

If you want to disable the above service on different Windows version, just select your particular OS from the following list-

• Error Reporting service on Windows 8 or Windows 7
• Problem Reporting service on Windows Vista
• Problem Reporting service on Windows XP

1} Via Windows Services

Here’s how to enable or disable the Error reporting service on Windows 10 PC-

• Make a right-click on the Win icon and select the Run option.
• Type services.msc in the void then hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys and press the Enter key to cite Windows Services.
• Here, switch to the adjacent right-screen and scroll down to locate the “Windows Error Reporting Service” entry.
• Perform a right-click on the above entry and select the “Properties” option.

• Henceforth, locate the Startup type and choose “Disabled” on the drop-down menu next to this.

Note:

1. In certain scenarios, you might not be able to perform the above changes in the Startup type. This simply implies that you require administrative privileges to perform the above action.
2. To re-enable this service, all you require is to follow the above steps and choose the “Automatic” option.

Lastly, hit the OK button to get out of the current window. Do Restart your PC to confirm the above changes.

2} Using Registry Tweaks

Registry Editor is the best workaround to turn off the Error Reporting service on Windows 10 PC. All you need is to adjust a few entries as illustrated in the following steps-

Step-1: At first, press Win+R to invoke Run dialog and type “Regedit” followed by the Enter Key.

Step-2: If UAC prompts, tap Yes to start the Registry Editor.

Step-3: On the succeeding screen, navigate to the following path-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting

Step-4: Here, switch to the adjacent right-screen and locate the “Disabled” entry.

Step-5: Perform a click on the above entry to open it and replace the value “0” with “1”. Subsequently, press the OK button to save the changes.

Step-6: If there is no such entry, create a new one and name this “Disabled”. Thereupon, perform the step-5. 

At last, tap OK so that changes made so far come into effect.

Note:

1. To create a new DWORD value, simply right-click anywhere on the Registry Editor and follow New > DWORD (32-bit) value.
2. The value “0” represents enabling whereas “1” disabling, hence you may enable this registry whenever you want to do so in the future.

Enable or Disable Error Reporting Service in Windows 7/8

• At first, launch the Control Panel henceforth select “System and Security” category.
• Next, click Action Center followed by Change Action Center Settings on the left column.
• Subsequently, select Problem reporting settings option on the Related settings section available at the bottom.
• Here, you will see four different options which are as follows-
  • Automatically check for solutions (the default one)
  • Automatically check for solutions and send additional report data, if needed
  • Each time a problem occurs, ask me before checking for solutions: This is the best option if your prime concern is privacy.
  • Never check for solutions (not recommended as per the company)

There’s even an extra option selecting which you may select particular programs that won’t report any errors to Microsoft. However, as this requires heavy customization, proceed only if you are really interested.

In case, you are not able to perform any changes, select the “Change report settings for all users option”.

• Lastly, hit the OK button on “Problem Reporting Settings” as well as “Change Action Center settings”.

Follow these easy steps to turn on or off the above service on Windows Vista-

• Hit the Start button and select the Control Panel option.
• Here, click “System and Maintenance” henceforth “Problems Report and Solutions“.
• Switch over to the left side and select “Change Settings” button.
• Next, select either of these options-
  • Check for solutions automatically
  • Ask me to check if a problem occurs

If you are worried about sending information to the company, select any one of the options listed above and close the current window. This will keep error reporting service turned On, however, it won’t allow Microsoft sending you any new notification regarding any new error.

To disable the error reporting service completely, you should follow the remaining steps as well.

• Tap the Advanced settings and disable the “For my programs, problem reporting is:” radio button.
• Lastly, hit the OK button on each and every running window.

That’s it, Restart your PC to save the changes performed so far.

Enable or Disable Error Reporting service in Windows XP

Follow these easy steps to turn on or off the above service on Windows XP-

• At first, hit the Start Menu and select Control Panel.
• On succeeding screen, select “Performance and Maintenance“.
• Here, select System henceforth Advanced tab on the subsequent pop-up window.
• At the bottom, you may see the Error Reporting tab, hit the same and enable the Disable error reporting radio button.

Note: Make sure to leave the checkbox “But notify me when critical errors occur” ticked. Doing so, Windows XP will still notify you about some serious errors, however, Microsoft won’t.

• Lastly, keep on pressing the OK button until you reach the Performance and Maintenance window.

That’s it, you may now close the current window and Restart your PC to save the changes made so far.