Microsoft KB Archive/931673

Knowledge Base

How to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Vista

Article ID: 931673

Article Last Modified on 3/19/2007

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APPLIES TO

• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Enterprise

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INTRODUCTION

This article describes how to create a user-mode process dump file (.dmp file) in Windows Vista. The Windows Error Report feature in Windows Vista generates mini-dump files and heap dump files. The Windows Error Report feature does not generate user-mode process dump files.

MORE INFORMATION

How to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Vista

To create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Vista, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Use Task Manager

To use Windows Task Manager to create a user-mode process dump file, follow these steps:

1. Start Task Manager. To do this, use one of the following methods:
   • Right-click an empty area of the task bar, and then click Task Manager.
   • Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
2. Click the Processes tab.
3. Right-click the name of the process that you want, and then click Create Dump File.
   
   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.
   
   A dump file for the process is created in the following folder:

   Drive:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp

4. When you receive a message that states that the dump file was successfully created, click OK.

Method 2: Use the ADPlus tool

You can use the ADPlus tool to create a user-mode process dump file. The ADPlus tool is included in "Debugging Tools for Windows". For more information about "Debugging Tools for Windows" and about how to download it, visit the following Microsoft Web site.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

For more information about how to use the ADPlus tool, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

286350 How to use ADPlus to troubleshoot "hangs" and "crashes"

How to determine the approximate size of a user-mode process dump file that will be created

You can use Performance Monitor to determine the approximate size of a user-mode process dump file that will be created. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type perfmon in the Start Search box, and then click perfmon.exe in the Programs list.
   

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.

1. Expand Monitoring Tools, and then click Performance Monitor.
2. Right-click an empty area of the display pane, and then click Add Counter.
3. Under Available counters in the Add Counters dialog box, click the down arrow next to the Process performance object, and then click the Virtual Bytes counter.
4. Under Instances of selected object, click the name of the process, click Add, and then click OK.

The value that appears is the approximate size of the dump file. When you create a user-mode process dump file, make sure that sufficient free space is available on the hard disk where the dump file will be stored.

REFERENCES

The Windows Error Report feature in Windows Vista generates the following information:

• Report manifest file (Report.wer)
• Operating system version information (.version.txt)
• Application information(.appcompat.txt)
• Heap dump file (.hdmp)
• Mini-dump file (.mdmp)

However, user-mode process dump information is not available by using this feature.

To configure the Windows Error Report feature, you can modify certain registry settings. For more information about how to do this, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363489.aspx

Additional query words: crash

Keywords: kbinfo kbhowto kbexpertiseinter KB931673

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