Re: Finding out where a crash occurred

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Stanza wrote:
I'm developing on Vista, and my program may dynamically load DLLs from other suppliers, so to a degree it will be at the mercy of bugs in other people's code.

If a user reports a crash, I need to be able to find out whether the problem is in MY code or in one of those DLLs.

If I create a DEBUG build then the stack trace in the IDE will tell me where a crash occured - that's IF I can reproduce the user's reported crash.

But when the RELEASE version is run on Vista, and a crash occurs all that appears on the screen is a message box that says that "MYPROG has stopped working" and a CLOSE button. There doesn't seem to be any information about the crash at all - not even an address.

Does Windows XP give any more information when a program crashes?

So if my program crashes on someone else's PC how do I get the necessary information to find out roughly where the crash happened - particularly whether it was in my own code or one of the DLLs?


Alternatively, you can install (on the customer's machine) the Debugging Tools for Windows package:
Debugging Tools for Windows - Overview:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

Once installed, you can use the ADPlus script to generate a crash dump when the program throws an exception. For instance, you could start a command window from the folder where the tools are installed with:
cscript adplus.vbs -crash -quiet -pn <yourprogname> -o: <some path to a folder for the dump>

Then, using the WinDbg debugger (also part of the tools you installed), you can open the dump file and examine it for details about the location of the crash. You can start with the command "!analyze -v"


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