blog: dr watson in vista

Post by **nikos** » 2008 Jun 22, 09:27

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at:
http://zabkat.com/blog/22Jun08-vista-wa ... ugging.htm

desslok · Post by **desslok** » 2008 Jun 22, 09:51

Thanks. Very useful.

namsupo · Post by **namsupo** » 2008 Jun 22, 22:29

You could always wrap your own exception handler and write out the minidump file yourself.

Post by **nikos** » 2008 Jun 23, 08:35

i sure could but that's not the point! I would have to send out separate special debug builds....

how large is a minidump?

namsupo · Post by **namsupo** » 2008 Jun 23, 08:42

It varies but they're not that big (usually only a few meg at most).

Put an exception handler round the whole program with SetUnhandledExceptionFilter, and then if you crash write the minidump out to a file in %TEMP%. Then the user can send it to you or not - at least they have it there waiting for them.

Post by **nikos** » 2008 Jun 23, 09:05

well you see that a few meg is much harder to email than a few KB that's dr watson report!

namsupo · Post by **namsupo** » 2008 Jun 23, 11:34

These days a few meg isn't really a problem for most people, and a minidump is a LOT more useful

ZoNi · Post by **ZoNi** » 2008 Jun 24, 09:20

I have never understand why Sherlock... uhm, dr. Watson need to be on my PC!

That is why I always removed it with nLite

Post by **nikos** » 2008 Jun 24, 09:24

so now you see how developers need it to troubleshoot problems on your computer!

fuxs · Post by **fuxs** » 2008 Jun 24, 19:52

The guys'n'dolls at Opera Software recommend Inspector IIXII to catch own crashes and freezes instead of Dottore Watson (which also can't do the latter).

Works with any program though, as it has to be registerd as debugger just like Nikos described it for Dr. Watson. I did not bother to compare their outputs yet as I happen to see very few crashes...