Automatic Dump Files from Windows XP

If you are running VTS on any version of the Windows operating system prior to Windows VISTA™, then Dr. Watson can be used to create an automatic dump file whenever an application stops unexpectedly. 

The default settings for Dr. Watson are not sufficient to properly catch all the information that will be required for accurate diagnostics.  When installing VTS on a new computer that is running Windows XP™, the following steps should always be followed to properly configure Dr. Watson:

 

1.   Start Dr. Watson.

This can be done by clicking Start >> Run…   then typing DRWTSN32 in the Run dialog box.

2.   Make a note of the log file path and crash dump path and file, but do not change either.

3.   Ensure that the Crash Dump Type is set to Full

4.   Ensure that the Dump All Thread Contexts box is checked

5.   Ensure that the Append to Existing Log File box is checked

6.   Ensure that the Create Crash Dump File box is checked.

7.   Un-check the Visual Notification check box.

You need Dr. Watson to simply run – you do not need a notification window that will wait for you to click an OK button to continue.

The configured dialog should look similar to Figure 126.

Figure 126

As a general rule, the file generated by Dr. Watson should be 2 to 3 times the memory usage at the time the dump was created.  If it isn't this large, then likely reasons are either that the crash dump process was cut short by the system being re-booted, or Dr. Watson is set to Mini mode.

 

You can force Dr. Watson to make a crash dump at any time, rather than waiting for an actual crash to occur.  To do this, you need to know the PID number of the VTS process.

8.   Open the task manager by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL then selecting Task Manager

9.   In the task manager view options, click on Select Columns…

10. Check the PID (Process Identifier) column

 

Once you have the PID number follow these steps to generate a crash dump. Note that VTS will stop when this happens.

11. Click on Start >> Run

12. In the  Run dialog, type DRWTSN32 –P  pid#

Where pid# is the process ID number you found from the task manager