Basic Crash Dump Analysis

If OCA fails to identify a resolution or you are unable to submit the crash to OCA, an alternative is analyzing crashes yourself. As mentioned earlier, WinDbg and Kd both execute the same analysis engine used by OCA when you load a crash dump file, and the basic analysis can sometimes pinpoint the problem. As a result, you might be fortunate and have the crash dump solved by the automatic analysis. If not, there are some straightforward techniques to try to solve the crash.

This section explains how to perform basic crash analysis steps, followed by tips on leveraging Driver Verifier (which is introduced in Chapter 8) to catch buggy drivers when they corrupt the system so that a crash dump analysis pinpoints them.

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