Man, I'm losing my temper here with win2k! I love the OS but NOT microsoft! Now... another major problem. Why is it that there is some sort of a debugger installed on win2k pro by default?! Does MS think most web designers and standerd power users need another HEADACHE!! If they need it why isnt there just an option to enable/disable a debugger?! Anyway... here goes my prob. Sometimes an app will crash and when I try to manualy terminate it using the task manager, I will get the message "This progrem is being debugged, etc..." It takes about 5-8 minutes usually for it to end! Now this isnt exactly what I meant when I wanted to quickly terminate a proggy!....sick and disqusting microsoft is! I HATE I HATE I HATE THEM!... They are wasting away my LIFE on thoudsands of stupit bugs which I end up being the tester of! (told you I'm losing my temper with them!) Furthermore, I've deleted ALL and ANY (pointless) DRWATSON references from the registery and most 'debugger' entries not assocciated with java and such others. Now from my understanding DrWatson is Windows' default debugger. Why then is it still debugging when there IS NO DEBUGGER INSTALLED?! Once again, 15 minutes wasted on writing this, and all on account of microsoft's fukking, ultimite bug dripping OS. Anyhow... I'm desperete to finding a cure for this bugging, debugger issue. I beg anyone to please help me if they can!

Thank you...
---Marcus signing offff!

[This message has been edited by Marcus1 (edited 02 May 2000).]

What a well-reasoned and coherently thought-out post.

There are two issues here - one is the script debugger in IE5, the second the GPF handler.

To fix option one, in IE5 select Tools, Options, Advanced. From there, check the "disable script debugging" box. This will no longer inform you when viewing a badly written web page.

For the second, run "drwtsn32". Now uncheck the "create crash dump file" box.

Easy really. FWIW, all this is contained in the on-line dox that ship with W2K.

Another thing it could be is you are running one of the first copys that was available for download or through MSDN. Those copys still had the beta debugger code in (they forgot to remove it befor release of those copys). If this is the case then you need to install the retail version to get rid of the debugger.

Good point. I had assumed that everybody would be running gold code by now...

Okay guys. I want to thank you for your inputs! For the record, I'm sorry I didnt mention this; I AM running a brand new retail Win 2000 Pro build 2195, (I'm a PC engineer for a local biz - overloaded with latest retail software). I am however wondering why I havent heard others with this problem. As far as what you've said, Yuppiescum, it couldnt have been the script debugger in IE5 as it is disabled in Win2k by default, as was in this case as well on my pc and in the registery. And strangely, as far as Dr Watson was concerned, unchecking the "create crash dump file" box, has proven not to fix this problem at all, as I've still gotten two more debugging problems after unchecking that. However the prob is fixed now. For anyone interested, I'll continue... After phisicaly deleting "drwatson.exe" "debug.exe" and "wowdeb.exe" and then optimizing the registery to delete any references of these files, the system is no more bugging with debugging. And If anyone is having similar probs; remember, you can do the exact thing, and in case you ever need a debugger, just install one of your own choice. Once again, thank you guys for helping me.

---Marcus signing offf!

Well, i was getting that awfull debugging thingie, created a huge file on my computer (around 500mb) after debugging.

I play a game that has a few memory leaks and after some time playing the game without restarting it, it crashes and starts debugging, but this is an Online game and while Dr.Watson is debugging, while itīs debugging i could die and loose a lot of equipment (btw, itīs Ultima Online :-]).

I searched the net for some way to fix this, but with no luck, then i tried searching the Help for Win2k and what do you know, i found a way to fix it. Iīve had a few crashes after trying the solution in the help and what do you know, no more debugging :-].

Ok, start off with opening help, go to the index tab, type debugger value, to ensure youīre in the right place, the topic for Debugger Value is "Setting up Dr. Watson"

Or here is the easy way :-]:
Open regedit.exe
Go here: \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug
Set "Auto" to 0 (default is 1)
Set "Debugger to "drwtsn32 -i", default is "drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g"

While this still starts the debugger, you now have a option to click "Ok" and "Cancel" when a application crashes. Pressing Ok will terminate the application and Cancel will start the default debugger, so just press Ok and what do you know, no debugger :-]

Atleast this worked for me :-]

HI all,

Great tips on the Reg edits and such to stop the debugging. There is another setting which may be causing the problem besides the DR Watson settings but Im not to sure. Under Systems Proiperties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery there is a setting under Systems Failure that allows you to Debug if you want. Im not sure if this applys to applications crashing but turning it off is probably a good idea. I think this may be more to do with a major systems failure, similar to a blue screen in NT4??.

Any Ideas?

Cheers!