By default when a critical system failure occurs that can be caught by Windows Vista and does not cause the machine to completely hang, Windows briefly displays some of the debug information onscreen. More detailed debug information is written to disk, then the system reboots.

While many computers, such as servers, need to automatically reboot upon system failure so they can more quickly restart and handle requests, desktop computer users may not want this to occur. By reading the on-screen debug data and using search engines or posting it to forums, the cause of the critical restart may be found and in some cases fixed.

1. Click the Start button, selecting "Control Panel" from the menu.

2. If "Control Panel Home" is selected in the left pane of the Control Panel, click "System and Maintenance", then "System" in the right pane. Otherwise, "Classic View" will be selected in the left pane. Double-click "System" in the right pane.


3. Click "Advanced System Settings" in the left pane.

4. If the "User Account Control" dialog box appears, click "Continue".

5. The "System Properties" dialog box appears. Click the "Advanced" tab.

6. Underneath "Startup and Recovery", click the "Settings" button.

7. The "Startup and Recovery" dialog box appears. Underneath "System failure", uncheck "Automatically restart".

8. Click "OK" on the dialog boxes to close them.

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