Dr. Watson user.dmp file problems on Windows XP?

[Dr. StrangeDub]

I was wondering if anyone else had run into problems related to the
Dr. Watson user.dmp file on Windows XP? In particular has anyone seen
a situation where a program aborts but is unable to overwrite the
existing user.dmp file? Or has anyone seen a situation where a
program running under an Administrators-group user-id is unable to
copy the existing user.dmp file (receiving an I/O error 05)? We've
seen both situations and it seems to occur only on Windows XP systems.
After we manually delete the old user.dmp file, the program abort
sucessfully creates a new user.dmp, and the program that copies the
file has no problem.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Michael Rose
-Unisys Corp

 

[wayne]

turn off the create a dump file it is useless and wasteful most of the time
if you are trying to troubleshoot something you can turn it back on. Check
the setting for the folder the dump file resides in and make sure the user
ave full control.

Wayne

 

[Dr. StrangeDub]

Just an update on our user.dmp file problems on WinXP:

It now looks like (in at least 2 of the cases) user.dmp may have been
propogated from one system to another by "ghosting" or other HD image
copying process. We believe that the user.dmp that got created by
cloning is owned by a non-existent user, and that is why it can't be
overwritten or copied. So perhaps we may have a procedural problem.

Still some questions remain: why has this just shown up on WinXP,
while we never saw it on Win2K or earlier versions of Windows? (We've
been creating "pre-load" images for our servers for some years now.)
Also, why can someone in the Administrators group delete the file
manually (via File Explorer) but not overwrite it or copy it to
another location? And why can't this user view the current owner of
the file, but instead must assume ownership before displaying the file
owner?

Any help, info, or relevant links appreciated.
Michael Rose
-Unisys Corp

 

[Dr. StrangeDub]

The root cause of I/O error 05 (access denied) in attempting to copy
user.dmp was a change in Windows XP concerning the default security
settings of this file. The statement I got from Microsoft (after
being on the phone over 4 hours with several patient support people)
is this:
"User.dmp gets permissions assigned when it gets created by user
and it is not inherited from parent folder. It is by design."

Apparently, user.dmp was moved into User Profile space in WinXP, and
due to special User Profile security logic, it will not inherit
security from its parent folder. Instead it gets specific ACL settings
-- that does NOT include the Administrators group. Note that this
only applies to user.dmp, and not drwtsn32.log.

The most direct fix is to change the Crash Dump (user.dmp) location so
that it is not within User Profile space. This can be done through
Dr. Watson or directly by setting the following registry key value:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\DrWatson\CrashDumpFile

Here's the fun bit: it appears that this "special" handling of
user.dmp (where it doesn't inherit ACLs) only applies to Windows XP
Pro. I have verified that the embedded version of Windows XP acts
normally -- although user.dmp is in the same location as in standard
XP, it inherits ACLs just fine. As for Windows 2003 Server, another
fun fact: the default Watson location has changed again. I found
Watson files at the following location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<userid-x>\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson.

It appears that user.dmp inherits ACLs from parent normally in
Win2003.

Is this stuff documented anywhere?

-Michael Rose
Unisys Corp.