Windows 8 – Where Does Windows 8 Store User-Mode Crash Minidumps?

crashminidumpswindowswindows 8windows-error-reporting

Where does Windows 8 store minidumps from user-mode crashes?

Windows Vista and Windows 7 is documented to (by default) store a crash dump in:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps

A fact supported by observational evidence:

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But, when an application crashes on Windows 8:

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There are no crash dumps in %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps; there isn't even a CrashDumps folder:

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Which leads to the question:

Where does Windows 8 store minidumps from user-mode crashes?

Note: You can ignore everything after the first line; it's just wasted filler.

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Best Answer

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

  1. Enable the policy Configure Report Archive:

    • Archive behaviour = Store all
    • Max number = 100

  2. 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.

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