Using RTX Extended Windows Minidump Files

You can configure RTX to extend the Windows minidump file to include information about RTX. An RTX extended Windows minidump file contains both Windows STOP Message information plus key information about the current state of the RTSS subsystem (specifically the currently running process and thread). You can then load the RTX extended Windows minidump file in WinDbg and view RTSS subsystem data.

About Windows Dump Files

You can configure Windows to use kernel memory dumps, complete memory dumps or small memory dumps. Kernel and complete memory dumps include RTX information, regardless of whether or not RTX extended minidump functionality has been enabled. Small memory dumps only include RTX information when RTX extended minidumps are enabled.

To determine the type and location of your Windows dump file:

From the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
Click System and Maintenance and then click System.
In the left pane, click Advanced System Settings.
In the System Properties window that appears, click the Advanced tab.
In the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings. You see the Startup and Recovery dialog box.

The Write Debugging Information section tells you what type of dump Windows will use to capture debugging information and where the dump will be stored.

Click OK or Cancel to close the Startup and Recover dialog box.

Enabling RTX Extended Minidumps

To enable RTX extended minidumps, follow the instructions in Creating an RTX Minidump in Using RTX Runtime.

Opening the Minidump File

Before opening the RTX extended minidump file, you must load the RTX Debugger Data Extension to get RTX symbols.

To open the dump file in WinDbg:

From the File menu, choose Open Crash Dump.
Locate and select your minidump file, as described in About Windows Dump Files, then click OK.

NOTE: You may want to obtain Microsoft Windows symbols. For more information, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311503.

Retrieving Minidump File Information

To mine a minidump file for RTX-specific content, start with the !rtxanalyze command. This command provides information about the state of the RTX subsystem at the time Windows generated the dump file. Specifically, you can get information about the processes and threads that were active at the time of the dump. From here, you can use the process and thread IDs returned by !rtxanalyze along with the !rtxcurrentprocess and !rtxcurrentthread commands to obtain more information.

Additional Information About WinDbg and Windows Minidumps

The following links provide more information about minidumps and WinDbg.

For information on crash dumps:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org

For information on Microsoft's Debugging Tools for Windows, including WinDbg:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff551063.aspx