Dr. Watson Debugger

The Dr. Watson Debugger is a utility that is included with Microsoft Windows that creates files that contain diagnostic data for program errors. This data can be read by technical professionals in case of a problem. You can disable Dr. Watson fairly easily, but you should probably run a CHKDSK afterward to make sure there are no other problems.

Dell BIOS

For Dell laptops, the U7670 is the authorization code for Windows XP. I’m assuming that you are using a Dell Dimension laptop. To get into BIOS you need to hit F2 or DEL on startup. If you are running another Dell product, you can find the code to get into BIOS here at Michael Steven’s Tech website.

Disable Dr. Watson

Many techs offer the opinion that Dr. Watson isn’t very useful and it should be disabled to avoid problems. I’m not going that far, but it is easy to disable it to see if that solves your issues. To disable it follow these steps:

1. Click on Start then Run.
2. Type in regedit.exe in the Open box. Click Ok.
3. Find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\AeDebug.
4. Click on this key and delete it.

Run CHKDSK

After you have deleted Dr. Watson, you should run a CHKDSK to make sure there is nothing wrong with your program files. If you can get into Windows, double click on My Computer, right click on the drive, select Properties and then Tools. Choose the Check Now and Automatically fix file system errors.

If you need to run it in Safe Mode, click on Run, then type in cmd. Type in chkdsk/f and then choose Enter.

Hopefully, this has answered all of your questions. If you have any further issues, don’t hesitate to let us know and we can help you further.

Kat Delong | November 5th, 2008
Tags: Dr watson error freezes laptop
Categories: Computer Error Messages

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