How to enable crash dumps on windows

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When troubleshooting crashes on Windows machines our support team may ask you to provide a 'crash dump'. A crash dump (also known as a dump file) is a file that is containing the digital record of a recent crash on your machine. By default these files are not enabled on Windows, so this guide will explain how to enable them.

 

Completing these steps is only necessary in cases where you have been asked for a crash dump by a support agent. If this has not been requested, we advise that you check with a support agent prior to beginning the process.

 

1. Open the Registry Editor.

Follow the steps below to open the Registry Editor:

  1. Press Win + R to open the Run command box.
  2. Type regedit in Run window and hit enter.
  3. Click Yes in User Control Window ****pop-up box.

2. Back up the Windows Error Reporting key.

Before making any changes to the Registry Editor, it is advised to back up the registry key you are going to edit. Below are the steps to take back up:

  1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\.
  2. Right click the Windows Error Reporting key.
  3. Select Export and save the **.**reg file on desktop.

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3. Create LocalDumps key.

Follow the steps below for the same:

  1. Navigate to the location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting.

  2. Select the Windows Error Reporting key and create a new key named LocalDumps if it is not there already:

    1. Right-click Windows Error Reporting.

    2. Select New and then Key.

    3. Name the key as LocalDumps.

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4. Create registry values in the LocalDumps key.

Select the LocalDump key and create three registry values as mentioned below:

DumpFolder Registry Value

  1. Right click in the blank area on the right side and select New > Expandable String Value
  2. Name it as DumpFolder
  3. Double click it and enter %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps in the Value data field

DumpCount Registry Value

  1. Right click in the blank area on the right side and select New > DWORD (32-bit) value
  2. Name it as DumpCount
  3. Double click it and enter 10 in the Value data field

DumpType Registry Value

  1. Right click in the blank area on the right side and select New > DWORD (32-bit) value
  2. Name it as DumpType
  3. Double click it and enter 2 in the Value data field

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5. Collect crash dumps

Once you have followed the steps above, reproduce the crash of the software and collect the related .dmp file with the software name from %LocalAppData%/crashdumps.

To do so, you can go to Start > Run > %LocalAppData%/CrashDumps > OK

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