(r)Ctrl-ScrlScrl When you’ve just gotta crash

By e March 22, 2005 Geek Stuff No Comments

Once in a while, you’ve just gotta crash to see what’s going on in memory. Somehow, I managed not to know about this handy setting, so I thought I’d pass it along now that I do.

First, ensure that your system is set to create a complete memory dump in the Startup and Recovery (Open Properties on My Computer, Click Advanced, Click Settings in Startup and Recovery, then select “Complete memory dump” in the “Write debugging information” dropdown list).

Then, add the following to your registry (assuming you know what you’re doing in the registry and aren’t going to blame me if you blow things up…this is, after all, about crashing your system).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
   System\
      CurrentControlSet\
         Services\
            i8042prt\
               Parameters
REG_DWORD CrashOnCtrlScroll = 0x1

Then, to force a system crash and memory dump, hold down the right CTRL key and press the ScrLk key twice.

Ta-da, you’ve got a dump and can load up your favorite debugger and see what’s going on.

Happy crashing.

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