Hints on using Just-In-Time debugging with Windows Vista

Just-In-Time debugging is trickier on Windows Vista than on previous operating systems. Today I am going to talk about the various knobs that you can use to make this better.

Hint #1: Use Visual Studio 2008 Beta2. I expect Beta2 to be out soon. If you are developing on Windows Vista, I definitely recommend trying Beta2 over previous versions of Visual Studio. While it is still a beta, Visual Studio 2008 greatly improves the Vista experience (at least for the debugger). As far as Just-In-Time debugging goes, the fact that you can't debug elevated processes was a big problem for Visual Studio 2005.

Hint #2: If you get a Windows Error reporting dialog for your application and there is no 'Debug' button, then click 'Send Report' and then you will get a second dialog with a debug button.

Hint #3: Windows Error reporting has several configuration settings. If you are finding that Windows Error Reporting is preventing you from debugging your applications, there are a few settings that you can tweak.
First, you can define the 'AeDebug\Auto' string:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug]
"Auto"="1"

Note that this is a String value, NOT a DWORD.

If this doesn't work, Error reporting can also be disabled at various levels through control panel:

  1. Start->Control Panel
  2. Click 'System and Maintenance'
  3. Click 'Problem Reports and Solutions'
  4. Click the 'Change Settings' link on the left side
  5. Click the 'Advanced settings' link
  6. Configure at will

Hope this helps.

[Updated on 5/23/2008] In Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, there is now a registry key to save the generated .dmp file: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787181(VS.85).aspx