We setup Windows 7 machines with touch displays that users interact with as a kiosk (ie. single, simple UI). We setup Windows Error Reporting to produce a Windows minidump file by creating HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps DumpCount and DumpFolder keys. This produces Windows minidumps that can be opened up in Visual Studio and contain all the information we need. What doesn't work well is that these Windows dumps aren't created until a user clicks "Close program" in the dialog below.
Windows dialog showing the close program button
The message in the dialog " has stopped working" is helpful as it lets our customers and support personnel know something went wrong and which program malfunctioned. However, in most cases they are unable to press the "Close program" button to produce the Windows minidump file (ie. dialog appears behind other dialogs, button too small to press, power cycle before pressing button etc). Is there anyway to still get the "program has stopped working" dialog AND have Windows automatically write a minidump file to the configured location with no user interaction?
The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\DontShowUI key partially works - it creates a dump file with no user interaction but it does not popup a dialog to inform the user the name of the program that crashed.