Most everyone is familiar with the Microsoft error reporting dialog. It tells you that something terrible has happened with application.exe, and that Windows was forced to terminate it. You’re given a humble apology, as well as a plea to help yourself and users just like you by reporting the problem so it can be fixed.

I vary on my reaction to the dialog. It’s rarely unexpected, as usually the application in question was not responding anyway. But do I send the report? If I know that Microsoft is just going to send me a link that says “Not our problem! Maybe you should talk to the losers who made the software!” then no. If the problem is a mystery to me, then I might send it just for kicks.

If it’s a Microsoft program that crashed, then I send the crap out of it. I was having an issue with Word a few weeks back, where it crashed anytime I opened a specific file. I was so frustrated that I would purposefully cause the crash, just so I could send another bug report. I no longer cared whether I could edit the file, as long as Microsoft knew that I couldn’t do it. Do I have your attention now, Mr. Gates? Is the problem fixed yet? Logically I know that sending the same report from the same computer ten times in one hour probably does not mean instant results. But like bringing down a shoe on one cockroach when you know he’s got a million friends somewhere, it just makes you feel better.

But sometimes, I get another experience with the dialog box, one altogether unique to programmers. The application in question was mine. It crashed because of something that I did. So now I have Microsoft apologizing for my behavior and asking if I would like to turn myself in. Uh, no, thanks, that’s quite all right. I’m just glad there’s no way for Windows to detect that I was running my own program, or I’d get a different message entirely.