If you have a program crashing with an access violation and no way to get an unmanaged stack trace or any type of information about the crash, you can switch from using the default XP/2003 "We're sorry - Send us a Report" debugger or the Visual Studio debugger to the Dr. Watson crash handler application.

Dr. Watson can be configured to dump all types of information about a crash which can help you in determining what the problem was.

First, open Regedit (Regedt32.exe on Win2K or earlier) and go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug

Rename the "Debugger" setting to "OrigDebugger" or whatever you want, as long as it's no longer called "Debugger".

Create a new REG_SZ key called "Debugger" with the value: drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g

Next, make sure the "Auto" setting is set to "1" (which means 'Enabled').

Then, go to Start-Run, drwtsn32.exe

A dialog will pop up allowing you to configure what Dr. Watson dumps:

Under "Crash Dump Type", select "Mini" (unless you need a full, which you probably don't)

Under "Options", select:

[x] Dump Symbol Table
[x] Dump All Thread Contexts
[x] Append to Existing Log File
[x] Visual Notification
[ ] Sound Notification
[x] Create Crash Dump File

Click OK. Then wait for the next crash, or, if you have a reproducible scenario, cause the crash.

When the crash occurs, send the log file and the dump file to First Choice for evaluation.

The log files will, by default, be located in the folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson

The crash dump files will, by default, be located in the folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson

You can configure these paths via the drwtsn32.exe GUI explained above.