Error reporting not reporting error

Yes, the title of this post is a palindrome, as a metaphor for the backwards and forwards nature of the problem I’m experiencing. You see, my computer has BSODed about once a fortnight for the last few months. That’s a Blue Screen of Death, for those of you not geek enough – its where your computer displays an error message, then turns itself off.

Now, I’m used to this – since almost every single computer I have ever owned has crashed on occasion: Windows, Linux, Mac (Yes, Macs crash too!), Android, Palm OS, EPOC, SIBO…

In fact, the only one that never failed me was my BBC Micro: but then I only really used that to play games; mostly Dare Devil Denis and Invaders. It also has something to do with that fact that the whole operating system and games combined came to about 60Kb. In comparison, this webpage is approximately 120Kb and a basic Windows 7 install is 20Gb, or 333,000x larger than the BBC OS and games combined.

So I expect computers to crash. But I also expect to be able to find out the cause and sort it out. In fact, Windows 7 has an excellent automated error reporting and solving program built in, meaning that it should be sorting itself out. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t seem to work. It tries to connect to the service, then tells me “Problem connecting to the Windows Error Reporting service. Some of the reports could not be uploaded to the Windows Error Reporting service. Please try again later“.

Needless to say, I tried again later, with no particularly helpful effects. Some forums advised me to turn off my firewall – not the best long term solution – and another advising allowing Performance Logs and Alerts through the firewall, which did not work either. I have tried a system file check, and a clean reboot, and am now out of ideas, and recommendations.

At this point I throw myself into the helpful arms of the internet – anyone got any ideas?