How to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Server 2008

This article describes how to create a user-mode process dump file (.dmp file) in Windows Server 2008. The Windows Error Reporting feature in Windows Server 2008 generates mini-dump files and heap dump files. However, you cannot use Windows Error Reporting to generate user-mode process dump files.

How to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Server 2008

To create a user-mode process dump file in Windows Server 2008, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Use Task Manager

To use Windows Task Manager to create a user-mode process dump file, follow these steps:

1. Start Task Manager. To do this, use one of the following methods:
   • Right-click an empty area of the taskbar, and then click Task Manager.
   • Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
2. Click the Processes tab, right-click the name of the process that you want, and then click Create Dump File. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue. A dump file for the process is created in the following folder:
   Drive:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp
3. When you receive a message that the dump file was successfully created, click OK.

Method 2: Use the ADPlus tool

You can use the ADPlus tool to create a user-mode process dump file. The ADPlus tool is included in Debugging Tools for Windows. For more information about the Debugging Tools for Windows package and about how to download it, visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more information about how to use the ADPlus tool, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to estimate the size of the user-mode process dump file that will be created

You can use Performance Monitor to estimate the size of a user-mode process dump file that will be created. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type perfmon in the Start Search box, and then click perfmon.exe in the Programs list. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2. Expand Monitoring Tools, and then click Performance Monitor.
3. Right-click an empty area of the display pane, and then click Add Counters.
4. Under Available counters in the Add Counters dialog box, click the down arrow next to the Process performance object, and then click the Virtual Bytes counter.
5. Under Instances of selected object, click the name of the process, click Add, and then click OK.

The value that appears is the approximate size of the dump file.

Note Before you create a user-mode process dump file, make sure that there is sufficient free space on the hard disk where the dump file will be stored.

Windows Error Reporting in Windows Server 2008 generates the following information:

• A report manifest file (Report.wer)
• Operating system version information (.version.txt)
• Application information (.appcompat.txt)
• A heap dump file (.hdmp)
• A mini-dump file (.mdmp)

However, you cannot access user-mode process dump information by using this feature.

To configure Windows Error Reporting, you can modify certain registry settings. For more information about how to do this, visit the following Microsoft Web site: