I have a Windows 2008 server with 7.5 GB of RAM and I want to get complete crash dumps off it.
I started by moving the page file mostly off the C: drive - I left a small 64-MB page file on the C: drive so there'd be one, but added a 8 GB initial and max page file to the D: drive using Control Panel/System/Advanced system settings/Performance/Settings.../Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change... I reboot, and I have an 8 GB pagefile.sys on my D: drive, all seems well.
Then I set up complete crash dumps, by setting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl\CrashDumpEnabled to 1 and change DumpFile to D:\Memory.dmp. I look under Control Panel/System/Advanced system settings/Startup and Recovery/Settings.../System Failure and I see the right settings. Then I provoked crashing using NotMyFault.
But I wasn't getting a crash dump. So I read this Microsoft doc and it says for 2008/Vista you have to add a DedicatedDumpFile entry in the registry. I added that, again at 8 GB, and now I get crash dumps, but I have both an 8 GB pagefile.sys AND an 8 GB dumpfile.sys on my D: drive (not to mention the 7.5 GB Memory.dmp dump file).
Am I missing something? Is there a way to use the same alternate page file for both normal paging and for crash dumps, so I'm not blowing 24 GB of space on all this?
