quote:
Originally posted by Patchou
Almost anybody who’s been using Windows for an extended period of time knows about the “Send Error Report” window. This window popups when a program crashes and asks if you want to send additional information to Microsoft about the problem. What some of you may not realize is how precious this information can be and how useful this system is. The reports are gathered together, classified, organised and made available to the associated software developer by the Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) team at Microsoft. For years this team has helped me improve Messenger Plus! with the reports you’ve sent. Tens and tens of important errors have been found and fixed thanks to the service they provide. I’m proud to be able to deliver a highly reliable product to my users and I wanted to point out that my job would be much more difficult sometimes if the Winqual team was not here to help. The people who work in Winqual are among the most professional people I’ve worked with at Microsoft and I just wanted to thank them for the service they provide, especially considering that most people have no idea of who they are and what they do 
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I'm so glad to hear that these reports do not go unnoticed. Indeed, everybody should do this (and put those paranoid and hear-says like "M$ is spying on you" aside). I've always clicked on "send reports" whenever the dialog appears and it is indeed one of the first things I do enable when installing Windows.
It is funny how many times people complain about Windows and how it crashes regulary etc, yet they also quite often don't provide such valuable reports back to MS when something does go wrong because they think "M$ is spying and gathering my precious personal info".
It isn't emphesized enough how important such a service is....
Also, for those who don't know this yet. For Windows Live Messenger there are very similar services dedicated to your precious IM client. You can active these by going to:
Tools > Options > Connections > Advanced Settings > Save a log of my server connection to help troubleshoot connection problems.
This log will be saved as msnmsgr.txt, by default in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger (XP) or C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Messenger (Vista).
and:
Tools > Options > General > Allow MS to collect anonymous info about your Messenger usage
note: exact phrases my differ, I don't have the English version atm
/ 
