Application crashes on start - how to get a crash dump file?

Question

My winform application crashes as soon as its been launched. This problem is only happening in one of the client computer. Works fine for all other clients. I was thinking of using ADPlus to get a crash dump but problem is in order to configure ADPlus in crash mode, debugger need to be attached to running application first. That means application must be running when I configure ADPlus, however, as I said my application crashes as soon as I start it. It does not give me a chance to run ADPlus. Any idea if ADPlus can be used in this scenario? Are there any other tools that I can use generate a process dump in this case?

Answer 1

Since you can't start the program and then attach a debugger in time, you can try one of the following ideas:

• Start the program under the debugger on the machine where it's crashing. As already mentioned, ProcDump is enough for that purpose, or you can use Visual Studio or WinDBG.
• If you can't easily start the program under the debugger (for example, if it is actually a Windows service), use gflags to make Windows start the program under the debugger. This will create a subkey for your program filename under the Image File Execution Options registry key.
• Set your debugger as the postmortem debugger, so it always launches when any program crashes.

If and when the crash happens, the debugger will automatically break in and either create a dump automatically or let you create one manually.

If you can't run a debugger, not even ProcDump, you can use Windows' built-in crash dump facility to create a dump automatically:

• On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, set Dr. Watson as the postmortem debugger by running this command:

  drwtsn32 -i
  

  Here is info on what this command does and how to use Dr. Watson: Capturing Application Crash Dumps

• On Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, and later, set Windows Error Reporting to save dumps locally by creating this registry key:

  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps
  

  You don't need to create or set any values or subkeys under this key. If you want to change settings, here is more info: Collecting User-Mode Dumps

  Note that "applications that do their own custom crash reporting, including .NET applications, are not supported by" WER. This is a problem for you because your app uses WinForms - although there is some indication that the feature does work with .NET 4 apps on Windows 7.

Answer 2

You can use ProcDump from Sysinternals to capture a dump.