Re: PSA - check if your crash logs are eating up your spare C: disk space

Maria Sophia <[email protected]> wrote:

> PSA - check if your crash logs are eating up your spare C: disk space
> 
> For whatever reason... I had "something" eating up disk space. 
>  a. The moment I clear all files, C: filled up to zero spare bytes.
>  b. Time and again, for weeks on end this happened to varying degrees.
>  c. So I bit the bullet and dug into how to find the culprit.
> 
> Long story short:
>  The Windows Crash Log directory was filled with browser crash dumps.
>  <https://www.supportyourtech.com/articles/how-to-view-crash-logs-in-windows-10-a-step-by-step-guide/>
> 
> Many apps (including browsers) write dumps to:
>  A. %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps
>  B. %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\WER
>  C. %PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\WER

For me, the first folder was empty, the second folder did not exist, and
the third folder had subfolder, but no files.

> If desired, you can turn off crash dumps with this admin command:
>  reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting" /v Disabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Or run the Power shell cmdlet "Disable-WindowsErrorReporting" (see
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/windowserrorreporting/disable-windowserrorreporting).

As you mention, edit the registry to disable error reporting.  0 (zero)
is the default if the Disabled data item is not defined.  Define and set
to 1 to enable the disable.  

Mine was already set to 1, but I don't remember doing it via regedit.
Probably set it long ago since I see no value to sending Microsoft
information they likely would not review, and even more so after they
discontinued Windows 10.  

Likely I used WinAero Tweaker under Behavior -> Error Reporting.  Their
tweaks usually have a help article, and this one has an info page at:

https://winaero.com/disable-error-reporting-windows-10/

Under Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance,
you can check for a list of app crashes.  After the above registry edit,
the "Check for solutions to problems reports" is "Off".  Click on "View
reliability history" to see the critical app crashes (which get rather
lost in all the other errors in Event Viewer).

There is also the "Windows Error Reporting Service" service you could
disable in services.msc, but unneeded if you do the registry edit.