Can I delete these dmp files in XP

[Jeff Malka]

On someone's suggestion I decided to search for *.dmp files on my Toshiba XP
Home system. I found three:
1. "user.dmp" in Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Microsoft\Dr. Watson\
2. "bios.dmp" and "ECKBC.dmp" both in subdirectories of Program
Files\Toshiba\ConfigFree\

Can I safely delete these files? And while I am at it, how about a 1 MB
file named "drwtsn32.log"

Thanks.

 

[Rob Schneider]

On someone's suggestion I decided to search for *.dmp files on my Toshiba XP
Home system. I found three:
1. "user.dmp" in Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Microsoft\Dr. Watson\
2. "bios.dmp" and "ECKBC.dmp" both in subdirectories of Program
Files\Toshiba\ConfigFree\

Can I safely delete these files? And while I am at it, how about a 1 MB
file named "drwtsn32.log"

Thanks.

Jeff,

I can't and don't want to to give you definitive advice about these
particular files. As described, they *sound* like dump files from Dr.
Watson's blue screen failures of XP. But for all I know, some program
on your computer wants them.

On my Toshiba laptop I don't have this folder "Config Free" in that
location so see if I have same. I do have user.dmp (45 kb) and
drwtsn32.log (2.8 mb) in the ..\Dr Watson folder. I'm going to just
leave them there. No big enough to worry about.

What I do in situations where I think I can and want delete something,
but not sure, I simply rename the file and/or folder prefixing it with
"Junk_", e.g. "Junk_user.dmp". I leave it that way for "a while". If
any thing breaks or some program complains about not finding "user.dmp",
then I know the file is needed and it remove the "Junk_" prefix.
Otherwise, later (weeks or even months), I'll simply clear out the files
labeled this way.

 

[S.Sengupta]

Hi!Rob!
When your OS or application causes an error or crash, Dr. Watson will
create a user.dmp file which you can safely delete and recover disk
space. The size of the user.dmp file will vary depending on task at the
time of the crash or error.
These files are in hex and not very useful to the average user or
sysadmin. One possible use of these files is to send them to Microsoft
Tech Support or developers for analysis. Since these files are not very
useful in most cases, it is not critical that they get deleted.you can
safely delete and recover disk space.
regards,
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

 

[Rob Schneider]

Thanks ... I understand all that. I just am not 100% sure that these
files are indeed what they appear to be. I need to be 100% sure of that
before I would advise anyone to delete anything. There are no
standards/rules in Windows and any program can do anything. I realize
there are conventions, but; as I said, I would never advise anyone to
delete anything since I am not looking at the machine and don't know
100% for sure. Call me conservative if you want... that's why I
provided the conservative advice.

 

[Jeff Malka]

Thank you. I understand what you are saying about being conservative. I
have sometimes moved files I wished to maybe delete to a special "delete
later" directory which has the problem of always knowing where to restore
them to if I need to change my mind. You suggestions

What I do in situations where I think I can and want delete something,
but not sure, I simply rename the file and/or folder prefixing it with
"Junk_", e.g. "Junk_user.dmp".

is excellent and one I will adopt from now on. Thank you.

is "drwtsn32.log" a file I can safely delete (though I suspect it will just
be recreated next time DrWatson shows up)?