Windows Error Reporting

WER is a distributed system. Client-side software detects an error condition, generates an error report, labels the bucket, and reports the error to the WER service. The WER service records the error occurrence and then, depending on information known about the particular error, might request additional data from the client, or direct the client to a solution. Programmers access the WER service to retrieve data for specific error reports and for statistics-based debugging.

Errors collected by WER clients are sent to the WER service. The WER service employs approximately 60 servers connected to a 65TB storage area network that stores the error report database and a 120TB storage area network that stores up to 6 months of raw CAB files. The service is provisioned to receive and process well over 100 million error reports per day, which is sufficient to survive correlated global events such as Internet worms.[8]

It can also provide the service where it considered the object by the directory server. Information is also stored to collect and associated with the object and resource. Sometimes the directory service the user do not have to remember the physical address of a network resources by providing name and locate the resources.

Software & hardware manufacturers may access their error reports using Microsoft's Windows Dev Center Hardware and Desktop Dashboard (formerly Winqual) program.[15] In order to ensure that error reporting data only goes to the engineers responsible for the product, Microsoft requires that interested vendors obtain a VeriSign Class 3 Digital ID or DigiCert certificate.[16] Digital certificates provided by cheaper providers (such as Thawte, Comodo, GlobalSign, GeoTrust, Cybertrust, Entrust, GoDaddy, QuoVadis, Trustwave, SecureTrust, Wells Fargo) are not accepted.[17][18][19][20][21]

Software and hardware manufacturers can also close the loop with their customers by linking error signatures to Windows Error Reporting Responses. This allows distributing solutions as well as collecting extra information from customers (such as reproducing the steps they took before the crash) and providing them with support links.

Microsoft has reported that data collected from Windows Error Reporting has made a huge difference in the way software is developed internally. For instance, in 2002, Steve Ballmer noted that error reports enabled the Windows team to fix 29% of all Windows XP errors with Windows XP SP1. Over half of all Microsoft Office XP errors were fixed with Office XP SP2.[22] Success is based in part on the 80/20 rule. Error reporting data reveals that there is a small set of bugs that is responsible for the vast majority of the problems users see. Fixing 20% of code defects can eliminate 80% or more of the problems users encounter. An article in the New York Times confirmed that error reporting data had been instrumental in fixing problems seen in the beta releases of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007.[23]

Although Microsoft has made privacy assurances, they acknowledge that personally identifiable information could be contained in the memory and application data compiled in the 100-200 KB "minidumps" that Windows Error Reporting compiles and sends back to Microsoft. They insist that in case personal data is sent to Microsoft, it won't be used to identify users, according to Microsoft's privacy policy.[24][25] But in reporting issues to Microsoft, users need to trust Microsoft's partners as well. About 450 partners have been granted access to the error reporting database to see records related to their device drivers and apps.[26]

Older versions of WER send data without encryption; only WER from Windows 8 uses TLS encryption.[27] In March 2014, Microsoft released an update (KB2929733) for Windows Vista, 7 and Server 2008 that encrypts the first stage of WER.[28]

In December 2013, an independent lab found that WER automatically sends information to Microsoft when a new USB device is plugged to the PC.[27]

According to Der Spiegel, the Microsoft crash reporter has been exploited by NSA's TAO unit to hack into the computers of Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security. According to the same source, Microsoft crash reports are automatically harvested in NSA's XKeyscore database, in order to facilitate such operations.[29]

• Winqual
• Dr. Watson (debugger)