How interpret DMP files?

I have read some posts in various discussion groups about using Windbg, or some similar spelling. It seems to involve command line use. If there were a user-friendly utility that did most of the work for me, and was known by experienced users to be good and reliable, and friendly to those who are not Windows programmers, I would spend a few bucks to try it. I have just done a search in this forum for my handle, and I do not think that I have posted this query previously, but inform me if I am mistaken.

A certain app, Videowave in the RoxioCreator 2010 program, hangs with a grayed out screen and a message, presumably from Windows, that it has stopped working and that Windows is searching for a solution. Running "perfmon /rel" shows many such events, with summaries such as "stopped working and was closed"
Windows never reports that a solution was found. In ...\Appdata\Local\CrashDump I find several dmp files. Most are large, such as 19 million bytes, but one is only 876kb long.
When I change the suffix of this short file from DMP to TXT, and open it in Wordpad, I find some "English" but nearly all is hexadecimal displayed as extended ascii, or so it seems.

I see references to debugging tools from MS, in the SDK. Well, I am not a Windows programmer, and I am not trying to debug an app. I am trying to get a clue as to why an app hangs, so that I can try to get help from the manufacturer of the hanging app, in this case VideoWave12.exe. I have posted queries in the Roxio discussion groups, but pretty much those identified as Gurus just say to select the repair option using the distribution installation CD, which I have done several times. The Roxio help ticket people just tell me to do a totally scavenging uninstall and reinstall. I may be simply wrong about this, but I do want to know, if feasible, why the app hangs and Windows creates DMP files.

Google search on "dmp files" yields nearly a million hits. I have read only a very few so far, but what I have read so far either call for rather complicated command line use, some involving concepts such as "symbols" or want me to buy some utility the value of which I cannot assess without paying for it first.

I need a path toward a possible solution appropriate to my current abilities.

highmeadowhiker said:

I have read some posts in various discussion groups about using Windbg, or some similar spelling. It seems to involve command line use. If there were a user-friendly utility that did most of the work for me, and was known by experienced users to be good and reliable, and friendly to those who are not Windows programmers, I would spend a few bucks to try it. I have just done a search in this forum for my handle, and I do not think that I have posted this query previously, but inform me if I am mistaken.

A certain app, Videowave in the RoxioCreator 2010 program, hangs with a grayed out screen and a message, presumably from Windows, that it has stopped working and that Windows is searching for a solution. Running "perfmon /rel" shows many such events, with summaries such as "stopped working and was closed"
Windows never reports that a solution was found. In ...\Appdata\Local\CrashDump I find several dmp files. Most are large, such as 19 million bytes, but one is only 876kb long.
When I change the suffix of this short file from DMP to TXT, and open it in Wordpad, I find some "English" but nearly all is hexadecimal displayed as extended ascii, or so it seems.

I see references to debugging tools from MS, in the SDK. Well, I am not a Windows programmer, and I am not trying to debug an app. I am trying to get a clue as to why an app hangs, so that I can try to get help from the manufacturer of the hanging app, in this case VideoWave12.exe. I have posted queries in the Roxio discussion groups, but pretty much those identified as Gurus just say to select the repair option using the distribution installation CD, which I have done several times. The Roxio help ticket people just tell me to do a totally scavenging uninstall and reinstall. I may be simply wrong about this, but I do want to know, if feasible, why the app hangs and Windows creates DMP files.

Google search on "dmp files" yields nearly a million hits. I have read only a very few so far, but what I have read so far either call for rather complicated command line use, some involving concepts such as "symbols" or want me to buy some utility the value of which I cannot assess without paying for it first.

I need a path toward a possible solution appropriate to my current abilities.

There are easier apps to use than windbugger but they are not as accurate. I suggest you upload your DMP files and let us do the heavy lifting for you if in the future you would like to learn how we have many qualified people.



If you wish to have others assist you with your computer's BSOD symptoms, upload the contents of your "\Windows\Minidump" folder. The procedure:

* Copy the contents of \Windows\Minidump to another (temporary) location somewhere on your machine.
* Zip up the copy.
* Start your own thread in the appropriate section of the forum and attach the ZIP archive to your post using the "paperclip" (file attachments) button.
* Briefly describe the problem history and circumstances in the same post. Somebody will attend to your query as soon as possible.

I am not getting BSOD. The error message is, approximately, "VideoWave12.exe has stopped working"

If the dmp file were in a folder named "minidump" then my attempt to use the utility "WhoCrashed" would probably work for me. My one short dmp file is in c:\users\Lynn\AppData\CrashDumps of only 876KB, but the several others, triggered by different hangs, are averaging 19 million bytes.

Should I do with the 876KB dmp file in the CrashDumps folder the steps you give me for a file that might be in a folder named Minidump?