# Can I disable Dr. Watson?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-disable-dr-watson/376347>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 13, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-disable-dr-watson/376347 "2006-10-13T19:19:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-disable-dr-watson/376347/1 "2006-10-13T19:19:22Z")

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I am a consultant who uses some software that was put together for me cheap-n-dirty. It gets the job done really well, but when I close it, it often triggers Dr. Watson (I am running Windows XP), even though there is no problem with the system that _I_ can see. Dr. Watson itself causes a problem, though–it basically stops my computer from running well, and I have to force it to quit in the Windows Task Manager.

Dr. Watson provides no benefit, but causes a significant problem. Can I disable it? How?

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-disable-dr-watson/376347/2 "2006-10-13T19:26:03Z")

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See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article: [How to disable Dr. Watson for Windows](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188296).