How to Use Windows Error Reporting (WER) to Capture Application Crash Dumps (User Dumps) On Windows Server 2008 And Windows Vista SP1 Onwards

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Article ID: CTX118614

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Description

This article describes how to use Windows Error Reporting (WER) to capture application crash dumps (User Dumps) on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 onwards.

Starting with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Error Reporting (WER) can be configured so that full user-mode dumps are collected and stored locally after a user-mode application crashes. Applications that do their own custom crash reporting, including .NET applications, are not supported by this feature.

Note: Dr. Watson error is obsolete and has been superseded by Windows Error Reporting (WER) in Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Instructions

Caution! Refer to the Disclaimer at the end of this article before using Registry Editor.

This feature is not enabled by default. Enabling the feature requires administrator privileges.

To enable and configure WER to capture and store application crash dumps, add the values to the following registry key:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps

Name: DumpFolder

Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ

Value: %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps

Name: DumpCount

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 10 (decimal) This will collect 10 application crash dumps.

Name: DumpType

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0x2 (Value 2 is for Full dump)

Note: The preceding settings apply globally to all user-mode applications. Application crash dumps are saved to the DumpFolder location. Service crash dumps are written to service specific profile folders depending on the service account used. For example, the profile folder for Network and Local Services is %WINDIR%\ServiceProfiles. For System services, the folder is %WINDIR%\System32\Config\SystemProfile.

Environment

Caution! Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.