watchdog folder not found

i get this periodical TechRepublic and in this issue they mention how to examine a bsod in text format which is apparently stored in C:\Windows\LogFiles\Watchdog folder.

i have searched my xp pro machine and a couple others and this folder is not to be found. have also search the web with only a few hits and nothing of importance about this folder. does anyone know about this folder ????

 

The Watchdog folder doesn't exist on my computer (XP Pro, SP2), either, although there is a watchdog.sys file in my System32 folder. M$'s Knowledge Base is woefully ignorant about either the folder or the file.

Although BSODs were a common occurrence with Win9x, I don't recall having had one since installing XP three years ago. So, maybe the folder and any contents are generated only if one occurs.

 

no that cant be the case cuz i had a few bsod's when i was using a 256mb ati graphics card ( a piece of junk ). nothing on m.s. site about this folder and not much of any importance on the web either.

so maybe this periodical TechRepublic is not as good a doc. as it appears cuz they make it sound like all xp machines have this folder and this ability.

 

Did you see their online discussion of the article? Apparently you're not the only one interested in this.

I should have added that I have no C:\Windows\LogFiles folder, either.

 

very interesting. looks like people have been trying to find this folder and file for quite sometime. one person mentioned opening up the watchdog.sys file. i guess he doesnt know to much about system files and that they for the most part are not meant to be opened and read.

this publication comes from cnet which normally is a good company but i think they have a big problem with what they published this month.

 

Hi Jim,

Running 2 Home installations. On the older one - 3 and half years: Windows\System32\LogFiles\WMI\trace.log The modified date is back in 2003. Unreadable Notepad format and is 32MB's.

On the newer one, not there at all.

Regards - Charles

 

steve

not really addressing my original post. i know what a stop error, bsod, etc is. and if you've ever looked at one then you know that its not the easiest thing to read - unless you get lucky and get one that actually gives a file name.

this article from techrepublic says that there is a text form generated from a bsod that is in english. not one like the watson file which even m.s. most of the time doesnt know how to read.

there is a watchdog.sys file but not even sure what that does.

 

agreed a data dump is unreadable thats why if techrepublic story on the watchdog file being a text file would be nice to see whats going on.

there is nothing on the web about this file mentioned in the article other than other people having the same question - where is it.

 

Here is what Google has to say about Watchdog. Did not read too much so did not learn where it comes from, but it seems to exist.
http://www.google.com/search?source...004-31,GGLD:en&q=C:\Windows\LogFiles\Watchdog
I have Watchdog.sys in C:\I386 on my PC, but no log File. Seems to be an MS file.

 

i read over a few from google and i dont think this thing exist. not sure where the writers information came from but everyone was having problems finding this folder and the file.

this is really strange. and if m.s. doesnt mention anything about it then its hard to believe it exist.

 

Find a dump

Look in

C:\WINDOWS\MINIDUMP

 

freak01

its not what the techrepublic article and one from about.com talk about. whats in the minidump folder when you open with notepad or any such app. doesnt make sense is in machine language. heres what the article says to get to this folder and file.

Here's how you access a Watchdog Event Log:

Use Windows Explorer to access the C:\Windows\LogFiles\Watchdog folder.
Locate and right-click the most recently dated .WDL file.
Select the Open command from the context menu.
In the Windows dialog box, choose the Select The Program From A List option and click OK.
When you see the Open With dialog box, select Notepad and click OK

 

There are only two ways a default XP can get good data from an exception or trap, DrWatson and Windows Error Reporting. (or of course a .dmp itself)

If you properly configure DrWatson, you will get a good stack.

Sure it does, also theres a blue light special on the golden gate bridge.

I dont see what the hubub is anyways.. The debugwiz tool that is floating around extracts 90% of whats needed to determine why a crash occured. There is no magic widget that will make things any easier than !analyze -v. If you can't interpet that output, then you need to seek professional assistance from someone who can. If it were possible to make it easier, then i would write an interpeter, and retire to malta living on royalties and windsurfing the days away.

 

btw, this isnt accurate. Debugging traps requires something called symbols, to resolve the hex addresses to source code mnemonics that have meaning. Only about 5% of the functions are in the export table. If you dont preload your symbols, then your watson log (the text file, not the .dmp) is basically useless, since there is no mechanism for reparsing the log with correct symbols.

Easier just to parse the DMP anyways, or use something like the wiz to pull out the stack

 

Mr.JoeHobart

your missing the whole point of this post so i guess you didnt read things before your post. plus your attitude indicates that you are apparently above everyone elses questions. again if youd read the other post you will also see that others were having questions about the article not just me.

techrepublic and http://pcsupport.about.com/od/quicktips/qt/bsod.htm put out this article about windows/logfiles/watchdog and the file it will create at the time of a bsod and all i was doing was inquiring as to whether anyone else was having problems finding what the article talked about. why dont you take a look at that link and then see why maybe i was curious about it instead of being condesending comments.

 

If its condesending (sic) to correct inaccurate claims, then guilty am i. The article is hastily written, and quite misleading, because as I said, there are only two ways to get good data from a trap or exception.

I spent a couple minutes looking at this, to do the work the author of this article should have done. So this magical watchdog event is generated for one stop code, 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER. The reason nobody sees this log is that unless you've had a stop EA, you won't have the log. It will not be generated for any other trap. I will also note this information will be added to the WER report.

Heres the plain english from the log:

Heres the plain english from !analyze.

 

i appreciate your checking further into this and then like you said the author did not give full information in his article. and thats all i was asking in my original post was information on this article. if you looked at some of the other links you also saw a lot of people questioning this and wondering the same thing as i was. based on your research the author left a lot out of his article a whole lot.

thanks again for your investigation.