How can I configure windows to generate a core dump from an application?

Question

How can I configure windows to generate a core dump from an application?

I'm using Win xp, and the application is build with Visual Studio 2003.

Solution 1

Microsoft has a free tool called Userdump.exe which will do this.

It's pretty simple to use that tool to create a dump (.dmp) file for a process that shuts down with an exception or to create a dump file for a hanging process

Solution 2

Just to throw in some other suggestions:

• ProcDump that is part of the MS SysInternals suite (it captures crashes but also does a load more, can take dumps if CPU usage spikes for an amount of time, etc)
• You can put code into your exe using MiniDumpWriteDump to save out dumps youself (which I've done in a few tools). You have control over the name and location (i.e. network path). There's some sample code here

Solution 3

You can open Task Manager (by right clicking the task bar), find your process in the processes tab, right-click it and select Create Dump File.

Solution 4

You can use adplus to produce a crash dump for a running application. The command may look something like this:

C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows\adplus.vbs -hang -do -o c:\ -quiet -pn theprocess.exe

You can also attach to a process with windbg and run this command:

.dump /ma c:\somepath\filename.dmp

Solution 5

You might try using WinDbg as described here.

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Comments

[pcent]

thank you for the answer. It's been the most adequate for my situation.

[pcent]

ProcDump is a good tool. I'll use Userdump.exe instead because the tool will be installed in a customer's machine, and Userdump seems easier to teach how to use.

[pcent]

Hefferman, I was looking for something to automate the generation of a core dump, but I will use WinDbg to analyze the generated dumps.