Configure Windows 10 Memory Dump on Crash

Despite the power that the world’s most used desktop operating system, Windows 10 , offers us today, this is not perfect software. As many of you will already know first-hand, it sometimes presents us with a series of failures that can be a huge annoyance, something for which memory dump helps us.

Serve as an example the case that we are going to talk about in these same lines and that at the same time we will show you how to solve in the best way. Specifically, below we are going to identify the cause and look for a solution to the problems that we can find in Windows 10 and that end up creating a file called Minidump.

Configure Windows 10 Memory Dump on Crash

What is the Minidump file in Windows

At this point, the first thing we need to know is what a file of this type really is in the Redmond operating system. Well, first of all we will tell you that a Minidump file in Windows is a small file that is saved on the computer. This is generated every time the computer freezes unexpectedly. So that we get a more exact idea of what we are talking about, for example this occurs when a BSOD occurs.

These are known as blue screens of death that we have encountered on more than one occasion, and that we all fear in the operating system. Once we know these, say that these files that we are talking about, are stored in a certain directory. Specifically Windows uses the following disk path:

C:/Windows/minidump

On other occasions and depending on the version of the Windows software that we are using, this file can also be stored in the following path:

C:/Winnt/minidump

ruta minidump

If any of the unexpected problems, crashes or blue screens have occurred in Windows, here the system will save a file with a name similar to this Mini031120-01.dmp. What actually gives us a glimpse of the numbers that make up the name of the file, is the date on which the failure occurred and the number of the dump file.

Control the crash dump of the error file

But on certain occasions, or on certain Windows computers with some additional storage drives, that Minidump file may be saved elsewhere. An example is the case that we have a computer that has slots for SSD storage cards. These additions over time have become increasingly common due to the external devices that make use of these flash memory cards.

Specifically here we find a package that consists of the SSD flash memory slot and a controller integrated into the operating system itself. This integration in Windows computers is mainly due to the fact that digital cameras, smartphones or tablets almost always store their content in this type of flash memory. We tell you all this because on a computer that runs Windows and that has support for using an SD eMMC memory, things change. By this we mean that in case of errors, such as those mentioned before crash, Windows produces a minidump file, but you can save it to other disk locations. This could translate into that if we try to locate this control file , we will not locate it. Say this problem is caused by the power management of the SD eMMC slots.

Check the default memory dump

Therefore, to override this default behavior of Windows, we must configure a special registry setting on the PC. This is precisely what we will talk about next, we are going to override the energy saving function of Windows eMMC during a crash or blue screen. With this we managed to produce a complete memory dump in the desired disk location.

Before you start, since this is a registry operation, it is recommended to make a backup copy of the registry. We can also create a system restore point in case the procedure goes wrong. Of course, before using the registry as such, we will use the search box that is located next to the Start menu. Here we type Advanced configuration of the system, entry in which we click.

Configuración avanzada del sistema

In the new window that appears, click on the Settings button in the Startup and recovery section, in the Advanced options tab. At that point we take a look at the drop-down list for Write debugging information. This must be configured as Memory dump of or Complete memory dump.

volcado de memoria

Write memory dump file to registry

Once we have made this check that we have just mentioned, then we start the Registry Editor . This is something that we achieve by simply typing the regedit command in the Windows search box. Once we have the editor on screen, we go to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/sdbus/Parameters

Next, we right-click on an empty space in the right pane and select New / DWORD Value (32-bit) and name it ForceF0State. We double click on the key we just created and set the value data to 0x1.

registro volcado memoria

Once this is done, we click OK and then we are going to make sure that the dump file is not deleted on restart, even if we run out of free disk space. To do this, we go to the following editor key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlCrashControl

Next we right-click on an empty space in the right panel and again select New / DWORD Value (32 bits). We name it AlwaysKeepMemoryDump and set its value to 1.

Check virtual memory on the system

Once we have finished with the Windows registry , we must also make sure that the maximum size of the page file is greater than the amount of RAM on the computer. This is something we can take a look at again in Advanced System Settings, as we saw in the first step. Here, in the Performance section we click on the Settings button. We go to the tab called Advanced options and the configuration of the virtual memory paging file size must be greater than the amount of RAM on the PC.

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To finish, we only have to restart the computer.