Using Dr. Watson to Create a Dump File

The Dr. Watson for Windows program (Drwtsn32.exe) is preinstalled in your system directory (typically c:\winnt\system32) when Windows is set up. The default options are set the first time Dr. Watson for Windows runs, which can be either when an application error occurs or when you run it from the command prompt or the Run dialog box.

To run Dr. Watson, the following command line is generally used:

drwtsn32 -p ProcessID 

For other options, see the Dr. Watson Command-Line Options.

By default, Dr. Watson is set up to save a memory dump file immediately upon the failure of a user-mode component. By default, this file is named User.dmp. Its default location depends on the version of Windows that is being used:

• In Windows 2000, the default location is the %AllUsersProfile%\Documents\DrWatson folder.
• In Windows XP and later versions of Windows, the default location is the %AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson folder.

This dump file is as large as the amount of RAM dedicated to the user-mode process on the system that failed. It includes the contents of the failed user-mode's memory segment at the time that the error occurred.

As with any user-mode debugging session, symbols for the appropriate executables and DLLs must exist on the local computer. If a warning message box is enabled (see Enabling Postmortem Debugging), you can copy the symbols when the message box appears. However, the symbols should not be copied after the debugger has started.