Anyone using a personal computer is likely to have experienced a system crash or stop error. For example, a process may not be responding, and this lack of response can cause the computer system to hang up. However, detecting and recovering from the root cause of a problem can be problematic owing to the number of possible causes.
A more recent feature in operating systems is known as “Online Crash Analysis” (OCA). When a crash event or stop error occurs during use of an operating system, a user can upload an error report to a web site for analysis. In an implementation by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. (“Microsoft”), error reports are analyzed and prioritized, the latter of which is done by total number of affected customers for such a stop error listed in the error report. OCA was put in place by Microsoft primarily to detect crash events or stop errors in drivers provided by entities other than Microsoft. However, Microsoft conventionally requires rebooting of the computer system after a stop error. Thus, all context and state information for all active/ongoing processes may be lost. This includes both the activity causing the error, as well as non-offending processes.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and useful to provide error detection that at least enhances the ability of pending, non-offending processing to be continued or recovered, namely, that at least reduces likelihood of having to reboot. Furthermore, it would be desirable and useful to be able to at least test some types of failures to check for proper system response prior to shipping to customers.