Received call from Microsoft support about errors on my computer

I had a call today claiming to be from Microsoft. The person showed me (by phone) the event viewer and then I saw all the errors and warnings under Applications and System.

To be honest, I was a bit suspicious of this person and when he wanted to get someone else to remotely enter my PC to fix the problems it concerned me. I could not connect to the internet whilst he was on the phone and he said he’ll call me back in 30 minutes and never did!

Anyway, can someone inform me? Was this likely to have been a genuine call from Microsoft? I do have loads of error and warnings in the event viewer and my PC takes ages to start up. Should I get back intouch with Microsoft so they can fix it or is there another way I can do it myself?

Thank you very much for any advice

Maybe someday the XP forums «Ask a question» dialog will ask these questions automatically when a new thread is started so I do not have to ask them every single time. It might even be possible to resolve an issue in a single reply when enough information is provided.

Please provide additional information about your system:

What is your system make and model?

What is your XP Version and Service Pack?

Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation: McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Panda, Trend Micro, CA, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.

If your system takes ages to start, you should first measure the current startup time down to the tenth of a second, take a look at the resulting measurements, see what is taking so long and why that is and fix it. Make your adjustments and measure it again until it doesn’t take ages to start.

I can tell you that my system takes exactly 28.03 seconds to boot from pressing the power button. That may not be practical for everyone, but until you measure it, you may not get a good result.

You can’t just say it takes «too long» or it «seems faster» — you need to measure exactly how long it takes with some free, easy to use software tools designed just to measure your boot time so you will know exactly how long every start up item takes, and then when you see it, you can see what you can do about it (or you could just start trying things).

If you need help interpreting the events, you need to post the events so somebody can see them. I prefer to have zero warnings (no alarming looking entries are allowed in my Event Viewer) or errors in my Event Viewer and if I ever see one, I am going to figure it out and fix it if it is within my power.

No event in the Event Viewer should defy explanation.

Here is a method to post the specific information about individual events.

To see the Event Viewer logs, click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer.

A shortcut to Event Viewer is to click Start, Run and in the box enter:

Click OK to launch the Event Viewer.

The most interesting logs are usually the Application and System.

Some logs such as Security and Internet Explorer may be completely empty or have only a few items. The default settings for XP is not to log all that activity unless you need to troubleshoot some issue in those areas. If you enable the logging for them the logs fill up quickly and could negatively effect your system performance with all the extra (usually unnecessary) activity.

If you have Microsoft Office installed, it has its own logs and they may be empty or occasional boring activity or very little activity if there is no problem with your Office applications. This is normal.

Not every event is a problem, some are informational messages that things are working okay and some are warnings.

However, no event should defy reasonable explanation.

Each event is sorted by Date and Time. Errors will have red Xs, Warnings will have yellow !s. Information messages have white is. Not every Error or Warning event means there is a serious issue. Some are excusable at startup time when Windows is booting. Try to find just the events at the date
and time around your problem.

If you double click an event, it will open a Properties window with more information. On the right are black up and down arrow buttons to scroll through the open events. The third button that looks like two pages on top of each other is used to copy the event details to your Windows clipboard.

When you find an interesting event that occurred around the time of your issue, click the third button under the up and down arrows to copy the details and then you can paste the details (right click, Paste or CTRL-V) the detail text back here for analysis. Remove any personal information from your information
after pasting if you are compelled to do so.

If you paste an Event, it will look something like this boring system startup event:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7035
Date: 7/14/2010
Time: 5:54:18 PM
User: Jose
Computer: Computer

Description:
The Remote Access Connection Manager service was successfully sent a start control.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

To get a fresh start on any Event Viewer log, you can choose to clear the log (backing up the log is offered), then reproduce your issue, then look at just the events around the time of your issue and troubleshoot the events that are happening when you have your issue.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

I decided to save up points for a new puppy instead of a pony!

System Error Codes

This section is intended for developers who are debugging system errors. If you reached this page while searching for other errors, here are some links that might help:

• Windows Update errors — For help resolving issues with Windows Update.
• Windows activation errors — For help verifying your copy of Windows.
• Troubleshooting blue screen errors — For help discovering what caused a stop error.
• Microsoft Support — For support with a Microsoft product.

More ways to find an error code

We’ve listed the system error codes in this section, organized by number. If you need more help tracking down a specific error, here are some more recommendations:

• Use the Microsoft Error Lookup Tool.
• Install the Debugging Tools for Windows, load a memory dump file, and then run the !err command.
• Search the Microsoft Protocols site for the raw text or error code. For more information, see [MS-ERREF]: Windows Error Codes.

Third party error codes

Other error codes may be generated by third party services or apps (for example, Error Code: -118 may be displayed by the Steam game service) and in those situations you would contact the third party’s support line.

System Error Codes

System Error Codes are very broad: each one can occur in one of many hundreds of locations in the system. Consequently, the descriptions of these codes cannot be very specific. Use of these codes requires some amount of investigation and analysis. You need to note both the programmatic and the runtime context in which these errors occur.

Because these codes are defined in WinError.h for anyone to use, sometimes the codes are returned by non-system software. And sometimes the code is returned by a function deep in the stack and far removed from code that is handling the error.

The following topics provide lists of system error codes. These values are defined in the WinError.h header file.

How to Disable Error Reporting in Windows

Disable error reporting to Microsoft in Windows 10, 8, 7, etc.

The error reporting feature in Windows is what produces those alerts after certain program or operating system errors, prompting you to send the information about the problem to Microsoft.

You might want to disable error reporting to avoid sending private information about your computer to Microsoft, because you’re not connected to the internet all the time, or just to stop being prompted by the annoying alerts.

Error reporting is enabled by default in all versions of Windows but is easy to turn off from either the Control Panel or from Services, depending on your version of Windows.

Before doing this, please keep in mind that not only is it beneficial for Microsoft, but it’s also ultimately a good thing for you, the Windows owner. These reports send vital information to Microsoft about a problem that the operating system or a program is having and helps them develop future patches and service packs, making Windows more stable.

The specific steps involved in disabling error reporting depends significantly on which operating system you’re using. See What Version of Windows Do I Have? if you’re not sure which set of instructions to follow.

Disable Error Reporting in Windows 10

Use the WIN+R keyboard shortcut to open the Run dialog box.

Enter services.msc.

Right-click or tap-and-hold Windows Error Reporting Service.

Select Properties.

Choose Disabled from the menu next to Startup type.

Can’t select it? If the Startup type menu is grayed out, log out and log back in as an administrator. Or, reopen Services with admin rights, which you can do by opening an elevated Command Prompt and then executing the services.msc command.

Select OK or Apply.

You can now close out of the Services window.

Another way to disable error reporting is through Registry Editor. Navigate to the registry key you see below, and then find the value called Disabled. If it doesn’t exist, make a new DWORD value with that exact name.

You can make a new DWORD value from the Edit > New menu in Registry Editor.

Double-click or double-tap the Disabled value to change it from a 0 to a 1, and then save it by selecting OK.

Disable Error Reporting in Windows 8 or Windows 7

Choose System and Security.

If you’re viewing the Large icons or Small icons view of Control Panel, select Action Center and skip to Step 4.

Choose Action Center.

Select Change Action Center settings from the left side of the Action Center window.

Select Problem reporting settings from the Related settings section at the bottom of the window.

Pick one of the four options:

• Automatically check for solutions (the default option)
• Automatically check for solutions and send additional report data, if needed
• Each time a problem occurs, ask me before checking for solutions: Choosing this will keep error reporting enabled but will prevent Windows from automatically notifying Microsoft about the issue. If your concern about error reporting is only privacy related, this is the best option for you.
• Never check for solutions: This will fully disable error reporting in Windows.

There’s also a Select programs to exclude from reporting option that you’re welcome to explore if you’d rather customize reporting instead of completely disable it. This is probably more work than you’re interested in, but the option is there if you need it.

If you can’t change these settings because they’re grayed out, choose the link at the bottom of the window that says Change report settings for all users.

Choose OK on the Problem Reporting Settings window, and then again on the Change Action Center settings window. You can now close the Action Center window.

Disable Error Reporting in Windows Vista

Choose Start and then Control Panel.

Select System and Maintenance.

If you’re viewing the Classic View of Control Panel, double-click Problem Reports and Solutions and skip to Step 4.

Choose Problem Reports and Solutions.

Select Change settings on the left side of the window.

Choose one of the two available options:

• Check for solutions automatically (the default option)
• Ask me to check if a problem occurs: Choosing this will keep error reporting enabled but will prevent Windows Vista from automatically notifying Microsoft about the issue.

If your only concern is sending information to Microsoft, you can stop here. If you’d like to fully disable error reporting, you can skip this step and continue on with the remaining instructions below.

Select Advanced settings.

Choose Off under the For my programs, problem reporting is: heading.

There are several advanced options here that you’re welcome to explore if you’d rather not completely disable error reporting in Windows Vista, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to completely disable the feature.

Select OK.

Select OK on the window with the Choose how to check for solutions to computer problems heading.

You might notice that the Check for solutions automatically and Ask me to check if a problem occurs options are now grayed out. This is because Windows Vista error reporting is completely disabled and these options are no longer applicable.

Select Close. You can also close any other related open Windows.

Disable Error Reporting in Windows XP

Go to Start and then Control Panel.

Select Performance and Maintenance.

If you’re viewing the Classic View of Control Panel, double-click System and skip to Step 4.

Select System under the or pick a Control Panel icon section.

Select the Advanced tab.

Select Error Reporting near the bottom of the window.

Choose Disable error reporting.

We recommend leaving the But notify me when critical errors occur checkbox checked. You probably still want Windows XP to notify you about the error, just not Microsoft.

Select OK on the Error Reporting window.

Select OK on the System Properties window

You can now close the Control Panel or Performance and Maintenance window.