To use the Windows NT dump analysis utilities, you must first configure your computer to write a memory dump file when it gets a kernel STOP error. Use the Recovery dialog box to configure the target computer to write the memory file, as described in the section "Creating a Memory Dump File" later in this chapter. This file preserves information about the state of the computer at the time of the kernel STOP error. The memory dump file can be used by the dump analysis utilities to troubleshoot the problem. If you use this option, you can run the dump analysis utilities on any Windows NT–based computer after you load the memory dump file, including the computer on which the kernel STOP error occurred.
This approach is usually the best for a computer running Windows NT Server because it minimizes the amount of time the server is unavailable. The default for a Windows NT Server–based computer is to automatically restart after writing an event to the system log, then alert administrators and dump system memory to the Memory.dmp file. Because of this, to preserve memory dump files, you rename the newest one each time a kernel STOP error occurs. You can then run the dump analysis utilities and send the information to your technical support group for processing.