Updated: July 13, 2020 (June 9, 2003)
Charts & Illustrations: Error Report Elements
During the writing of this article, Microsoft Word failed and Windows Error Reporting (WER) caught the error and collected failure information. Viewing the technical information about the error report (by clicking on the “click here” link) showed that four files were created: a manifest, an application compatibility file, a minidump, and a full dump.
The manifest (manifest.txt) is a small text file used to identify the failing software by name, version, module, and offset (as displayed in the Error signature of the illustration), and it lists any other files containing failure information that WER created for upload to Microsoft.
The application compatibility file (appcompat.txt) is a small XML file that lists which executables and dynamic link libraries (DLLs) were running at the time of the failure. For example, when Word failed, WER captured identifying information (name, version, size, checksum, and other technical details) on approximately one hundred Office executables or DLLs.
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