Where does Windows 8 store user-mode crash minidumps?
Solution 1:
I observed the following with Windows 8.1 Professional:
Windows Error Reporting writes to: %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\
However, per default, it no longer permanently stores the dumps on the local computer. You need to explicitly enable the storing of the dumps.
Use the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc
):
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Error Reporting -> Advanced Error Reporting Settings
-
Enable the policy
Configure Report Archive
:- Archive behaviour = Store all
- Max number = 100
You may also want to enable the policy
Do not throttle additional data
to send and store dumps for consecutive crashes with similar signature.
The dumps are inside the file Report.cab
of the crash specific subfolder.
Solution 2:
It seems to be very simple:
On my Windows 8.1 machine there was no %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps and no dumps were generated. I created the following value in the Registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps]
DumpFolder=REG_EXPAND_SZ:"C:\Dumps"
(the above syntax is not quite for .reg files, but it must be clear what it is)
and next time I had a crash of my program, the dump was generated in C:\Dumps
.
I hope this helps.