Application Error events

[snapicus]

I'm looking for a good way to diagnose the standard application crash messages from Windows (i.e. <Application> has encountered a problem and must close or <Application> has stopped working).

In the past, it's always been a guess or wait for an update to whatever software is having the problem.

Is there a utility out there which can dissect the information created by these crashes to identify the errors. I was thinking maybe Visual Studio or something like dependency walker.

Basically I'm looking for a generic way of breaking down these crashes to isolate the issue so it can be taken back to the appropriate vendor or if it's a dependent Windows system problem.

 

[mscallisto]

The event viewer's application section should report which app had a problem.

Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event viewer and click Application to view the errors.

Double click the line that shows an error or warning

 

[linney]

To get further information about the error look in your Event viewer.

Look in the System or Application folder. You can get to the Event Viewer via right click My Computer icon and select Manage.

Any errors logged in the Event Viewer can be expanded by double clicking on the error line.

Take any event error I.D. number and search for it on this site.

http://www.eventid.net/events.asp

If you want the highly technical cause of a crash look in the Documents and Settings/ All Users/ Application Data/ Microsoft/ Dr Watson/ Drwtsn32.log

Find the entry that is relevant by date and time to the crash you are investigating. The exact cause of the crash is indicated by "FAULT ->" on the left of page next to line of code causing crash. This, if your as cluey as me, wont tell you much but you can use it to see if it is the same fault all the time, and further up the log you can find what processes and modules are running.


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