How to configure Dr. Watson to silently dump a cra

Question

I would like to know if it is possible to configure Dr. Watson to silently dump a crashing process without popping up any error dialog box?

We need this because I run a set of integration tests with some applications. We don't want the tests to be blocked by an error message box. We need a way to make Dr. Watson silent but still dump the image when the process crashes.

Best,

Answer 1

Dr.Watson itself is silent by default. anyway, if you want to control the way Dr.Watson works, enter "drwtsn32.exe" at a command prompt to display the configuration dialog for this software. also, to install Dr.Watson as the default debugger, use "drwtsn32.exe -i".

the settings for the default debugger is stored in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug. the Auto value should be set to 1 for the system to automatically launch the default debugger. in your case, it is mandatory to set this value to 1.

once all the above things are setup, you can instruct Windows to stop displaying the "X has encountered a problem and needs to close" dialog. on Windows XP, this is controlled in the System Control Panel, on the Advanced tab, the Error reporting button on the bottom of the dialog allows to control how the system reacts when an error occurs. (on other versions of Windows, there should be something similar, search for "Error reporting" on Google)

with the debugger set to auto, Dr.Watson properly configured and error reporting disabled, the system should not show any dialog when a crash occurs.