Disabling Dr. Watson: Does It Really Improve Performance?
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
December 2nd, 2009 written by Christoph in Myth buster
It’s all about the placebo effect in this blog post. Does the hyped “Dr. Watson tweak” (which is supposed to shut down secret, resource-intense background-logging activities) actually improve your system’s performance? Let’s figure out if it’s really a tuning fact or fiction.
The myth
Unfortunately, some technical books and articles discussed the “Dr. Watson” program that apparently logs all of the activities on your Windows XP, Vista, and 7 machines and sends them to Microsoft. This was rumored to not only compromise your privacy but also decrease the performance of your PC.
To disable the “Dr. Watson” program, various sources recommended opening the registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug”, double-clicking on “Auto” and typing in “0″. But does this really help?
What is the “Dr. Watson” program?
“Dr. Watson” is a debugging tool for applications. If a program crashes, “Dr. Watson” is able to jump in, collect data and, if you choose to do so, manually transfer this data to support personnel to diagnose the problem. The data is stored in the “Drwtson32.log” file and can be immediately sent to Microsoft. Some additional background information on “Dr. Watson” within modern Windows operating systems:
- Microsoft developed an advanced technology based on “Dr. Watson” that was introduced in Windows XP. Known as “Windows Error Reporting” (WER), this technology automatically offers to send debugging information to Microsoft, thus helping the company to solve most of the problems in the operating system. So, “Dr. Watson” is almost obsolete in the operating system but is still there if someone needs it.
- “Dr. Watson” is only available in Windows XP and earlier Microsoft operating systems. It was replaced with the “Problem Reports and Solutions” applet of the Windows Vista Control Panel, which is called “Problem reporting” in the Windows 7’s Action Center.
As you can see, “Dr. Watson” is nothing more than one of the many legacy tools in Windows XP.
Debunking the myth
First of all, “Dr. Watson” does not run at any time during regular Windows XP (SP3) usage, which we’ve monitored for long periods of time. Even during a couple of application crashes, “Dr. Watson” does not magically turn itself on; instead, WER appeared.
To further debunk this myth, we conducted a small series of benchmarks using PCMark Vantage (To see how we conduct benchmarks at the TuneUp Blog, read this blog post.) Here are the performance results—both before and after disabling “Dr. Watson”.
PC Mark Vantage
As you can see, the productivity benchmark, PCMark Vantage, did not show any noticeable differences, regardless of whether “Dr. Watson” was enabled or disabled. “Dr. Watson” doesn’t affect performance in Windows XP, and it’s not even a factor if you’re using Vista or 7.
Are there any tweaks that you think don’t have a purpose or that you’ve always doubted? Leave us a comment; we’d love to prove if it’s just a myth—or if there’s any truth behind it.
13 Responses to “Disabling Dr. Watson: Does It Really Improve Performance?”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Twitted by TuneUp4Windows
- Tweets that mention Disabling Dr. Watson: Does It Really Improve Performance? » TuneUp Blog about Windows — Topsy.com
- Geek Squeaks’ of the Week (#40) « What's On My PC
- Can a “Secret” CPU Setting Really Improve Boot-up Time? » TuneUp Blog about Windows
December 14, 2009 at 9:46 am
Nice article! Thank You!
December 29, 2009 at 9:35 am
I quite agree that Dr.Watson so as to improve computer performance.And besides,I also write an article about improving computer performance.Hoping to share with all of you.
March 11, 2010 at 10:12 am
Some say that disabling Windows 7 indexing feature upgrades performance. How about testing it?
March 11, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Hey Jeet – disabling Windows Search will give you some noticeable speed boosts, especially if you have less than 2 gigs of RAM and a slower processor. But we love your idea and will test it out on several (differently spec’ced) machines and post the results here on the blog. It’s gonna take bit, but stay tuned! Best, Christoph
April 20, 2010 at 7:28 am
I am running Windows XP (SP3) and I have seen Dr. Watson “magically turn itself on” many times. I have seen it running after a codec problem occurs while running VLC or media player classic. I have also seen it at times when I get sloppy and “over” multitask in a program (like having 15 firefox windows open). When it “turns on” the system speed is affected.
That’s why the registry hack is all over the net. Because people are using it. Dr. Watson is a nuisance.
Its disappointing to read your article and then see a conclusion that basically says “its not an issue” when apparatently it is for many people.
Your arrogance with the whole, “We debunked the myth, figured it all out, and have moved on” is slanderous as you HAVENT figured it all out. I understand that your just trying to be cute and copy a TV show’s idea but still……
just my .02
April 20, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Thanks for your Feedback, Smith. First of all, I want to help: Dr. Watson was designed to run only when a crash occurs and not when you have too many programs (Firefox instances in your case) running at the same time. By default, when an error occurs, it only wrote a small “Mini” dump information of the error to your hard disk. This shouldn’t take more than a few very brief moments.
Now maybe you could help me out with the following informaion: How long does Dr. Watson run when a program crashes (Or when you multitask heavily)? How much memory/CPU usage is it taking up? What is the process name in the Task-Manager?
That would be extremely valuable! Really looking forward to your feedback.
Best, Christoph
April 20, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Howdy, Smith,
?
Pardon my ignorance, but which codec on earth does Vlc give error to?
The concept of designing Vlc was to run VIRTUALLY ANY FORMAT, most of them known to you and some unknown like Dirack and Pauli ( ever heard of them? ) And also what you claimed is fully correct as long as you are running 1.2GHz Pentium 4 with 128 megs of Ram.
So, the conclusion is, that either way the problem solely lies to you. Pray, did you write a codec yourself and tried to play it in VLC
And then again, as Cristoph said about mini dump files, he was more than correct. Ok, fire away mini dump, when you open firefox and browse web, several files are simultaneously written and erased, but thats not gonna slowdown your pc unless you have the aforementioned config.
Come on man, upgrade your pc, and join us in the 21st century.
Best,
Jeet.
April 20, 2010 at 2:49 pm
There must be direct link to the blog ( someone forgot the 3 click rule
in the tune-up.com homepage 
February 9, 2012 at 5:23 am
For me, it’s not an issue of speeding up performance, Watson simply freezes my system most times.
Disabling Dr. Watson works very well for me. I have a fav old computer with XP, my familiar old PhotoShop and I can play my music on it. The only things I keep updated are my Firefox, AVG, and ZoneAlarm (as much as I can since they are just about obsolete for XP too now) and I stay away from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
I am very glad there is still the old info out there regarding these issues because Bigger, Better, and Newer is not always the answer for everyone.
Thanks
Jackie