How can my Windows customers send me a crash log?

Question

If my application crashes at a customer site I'd like them to be able to send me a crash log with the minimal amount of hassle on their part. On OS X it's very easy: I can tell them where to find the crash log and send it.

What is the best way to do this on Windows? Is Dr. Watson as good as it gets? Can I count on that being set up by default?

The ideal solution would be part of the standard release of the software (i.e., not a special build) and would work for XP, Vista, Windows 7 and for 32-bit and 64-bit applications.

Thanks for any ideas!

Answer 1

I don't have a good overview of solutions because I prefer OS X, but at work we're using Bugtrap. It seems to support native, managed and mixed code (we're only using it for native code). It's been useful so far.

Answer 2

Why not let Microsoft collect the crash dumps for you? If you sign your binary, you can leverage the Windows Error Reporting facility and Microsoft will collect the crashes for you. You can then retrieve minidumps from Microsoft that were uploaded from your customers' computers.

Answer 3

I've been pretty happy with XCrashReport. It automatically emails out a crash report with tons of useful information, including a full stack trace with symbols, register dump, etc.