How can I configure windows to generate a core dump from an application?

Question

How can I configure windows to generate a core dump from an application?

I'm using Win xp, and the application is build with Visual Studio 2003.

Answer 1

Microsoft has a free tool called Userdump.exe which will do this.

It's pretty simple to use that tool to create a dump (.dmp) file for a process that shuts down with an exception or to create a dump file for a hanging process

Answer 2

Just to throw in some other suggestions:

• ProcDump that is part of the MS SysInternals suite (it captures crashes but also does a load more, can take dumps if CPU usage spikes for an amount of time, etc)
• You can put code into your exe using MiniDumpWriteDump to save out dumps youself (which I've done in a few tools). You have control over the name and location (i.e. network path). There's some sample code here

Answer 3

You can open Task Manager (by right clicking the task bar), find your process in the processes tab, right-click it and select Create Dump File.