Debugging Applications for MicrosoftВ® .NET and Microsoft WindowsВ® (Pro-Developer)

What's Next for CrashFinder?

The first version of CrashFinder got the job done, but it needed some usability help that the fine folks I mentioned earlier and I added, which took care of many issues people had raised. However, tweaks and additions can always make CrashFinder even better and also more powerful. If you want to learn more about binary images, I encourage you to add some of the following features to CrashFinder:

• Set up the different operating system binaries and have CrashFinder automatically switch between the different versions to give you better control over finding crashes originating in operating system code. Right now CrashFinder just looks for the system DLLs you are running on your machine.

• Show more information in the tree control under each binary. The CBinaryImage class has the functionality to show more information after the symbol information through the GetAdditionalInfo method. You could add the ability to show information from the binary image, such as header information, imported functions, and exported functions.

• Allow pasting in of DLL lists to automatically add them to the project. The debugger Output window lists all the DLLs that an application loads. You could extend CrashFinder to allow the user to paste in the Output window text and have CrashFinder scan through the text looking for DLL names.

• Coordinate CrashFinder with any crash dumps you get from the field. CrashFinder could double-check the crash against the crash dump and see exactly what went wrong.