MORE INFORMATION
A Dr. Watson icon is not automatically loaded during Windows Setup. If you
are experiencing a problem in Windows, it is recommended that you create an
icon and install it in the Startup group. If an error occurs while Dr.
Watson is running, specific internal data from Windows is captured and
written to the DRWATSON.LOG file.
How to Read a Dr. Watson Log
The Dr. Watson log is divided into sections, with each section being
separated by a blank line.
The Start (and Stop) line records the time and date that Dr. Watson was
started. A series of start lines indicates Windows with no application
errors. A start line immediately followed by a Stop line indicates the same
thing.
The Failure Report line records the time and date when the error occurred.
It also tells which version of Dr. Watson was running at the time.
The next two lines are related. The line "<APPLICATION NAME> had a <fault
description> fault at <module name> <cs:ip register>" is a descriptive way
of stating the next line (the $tag$ line). The $tag$ line divides the error
into fields separated by "$". The first field indicates what application
you were in when the error occurred. The second field indicates the
probable error. The third field indicates which module probably caused the
error, and its memory location. The fourth field is the instruction in the
stack that the application was on when the error occurred. The fifth field
is the time/date that the error occurred.
The next two log sections indicate what was in the various CPU registers at
fail time. The 32-bit registers are listed separately in the second
register section.
The System Info section provides information about the system and Windows.
Username and Organization are taken from Windows 3.1 files and may be blank
from Windows 3.0.
The Stack Dump section is divided into frames. You can find out what was in
the stack before the fault occurred in this section, in the first frame
(0), by locating its memory location in the stack (the memory location was
indicated in the third field of the $tag$ line).
The final section lists the applications running from the tasks list. (The
number of tasks running can be found in the System Info section.)
A User description appears at the end of the log. These lines are
preceded by a #> (for example, 1>, 2>, and so on).
Troubleshooting with Dr. Watson
The Dr. Watson log file is intended for debugging purposes. The more
Windows knowledge you have, the more useful the Dr. Watson log file will
be. At the very least, it can help isolate what application and module
caused the error. In general it is more important which module caused the
error than the application you were in when the error occurred. For
example, the following log in the Failure Report section shows an error
that could have been associated with the display driver:
Dr. Watson 0.80 Failure Report- Sat May 23 14:30:44 1992
Write had a 'Code Segment (Read)' fault at Display 2:ld70
$tag$WRITE$Code Segment (Read)$Display 2:ld70$mov
In this example, the program that caused the error message was "Write"
and the module is "Display". The first troubleshooting step in this
case would be to test Write while using a different video driver.
It is important to remember that Dr. Watson is a diagnostic tool, and not a
cure for a problem. Having Dr. Watson will not prevent an error from
occurring, but the information in DRWATSON.LOG can help isolate the
problem.