Microsoft Windows XP Professional Administrators Guide

In addition to the application management tasks listed earlier in this chapter, there are still several other administrative tasks that administrators need to perform. These tasks including configuring error reporting to automate the reporting of errors to Microsoft, configuring the Windows XP Professional's performance to favor applications versus network services, and regularly monitoring the Windows XP Application event log for application errors.

Application Error Reporting

By default, Windows XP Professional is configured to report any application errors to Microsoft when they occur. However, administrators can prevent the reporting of application errors or limit the applications that Windows XP can report. The advantage of reporting application errors is that it gives Microsoft and the third-party application developers that work with it information that they need to analyze and fix application problems and then to make these fixes available at the Microsoft Windows Update site.

Error reporting is configured from the Advanced property sheet on the System Properties dialog. A detailed review of error reporting, including how to disable, enable, and configure it to report only on specific applications, is provided in "Configuring Windows XP Error Reporting" in Chapter 3, Help and Support.

Optimizing Application Performance

A computer running Windows XP Professional can participate on a local area network and can provide shared access to its resources to other computers running on the network. Administrators can configure the manner in which Windows XP Professional allocates processor and memory resources to both local applications and shared network resources.

By allocating resources to support local application programs, administrators speed up response time for the local user. Conversely, by adjusting Windows XP Professional's assignment of processor and memory resources to favor network services, application performance suffers. Chapter 13, "Performance Tuning," provides a detailed explanation of the effects of assigning processor and memory resources and explains how to configure both.

Monitoring the Application Event Log

Windows XP Professional logs events that occur in a collection of logs called event logs. There are three event logs, each of which records different types of events, as listed below:

• Application

• System

• Security

These logs can be viewed and managed using the Event Viewer snap-in located in the Computer Management Console. Administrators use the application event log to search for problem information when assisting users in resolving application problems. In addition to reporting application activity and errors, event records may also supply administrators with answers to problems or links to other resources where additional information regarding a particular problem can be found.

For more information on working with the application event log, refer to Chapter 10, Microsoft Management Consoles, which explains how to use the Computer Management console to access and use the Event Viewer snap-in.