views:

395

answers:

1

An application is hanging occasionally, and I would like to see the dump at the time to figure it out. I had written an application that the user can run to automatically create a dump that I can look at. However I can't seem to get the users to remember to run it when it hangs, no matter what I try. They always end up closing the program, which invokes Windows Error Reporting.

WER will create dumps in the temp directory, but unfortunately they are deleted as soon as the dialog for sending the info to Microsoft or not is closed.

Becoming an ISV and getting this info from Microsoft's error reporting servers is one solution.. but not one that is realistic at the moment.

I can't imagine that I am the only one faced with this issue. The software is used concurrently by dozens upon dozens of staff, so reaching them all and getting them to run an application or not click close on that dialog until running some other application or etc has not been working out.

The app is running on Windows Server 2003. Too bad, since I know Server 2008 has some LocalDumps options that will let me retain them.

Any ideas for somehow keeping these dumps around so I can analyze them? The obstacle is the user, in the sense that I've accepted to their stubbornness and do not expect them to run any other application or do anything special.

Thanks for any advice!

A: