Intro Post

Welcome to this blog about debugging real-world customer issues we encounter at Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS). The way the posts are organized is: as soon as I have new information about an issue, I will post it here, even when it is not resolved yet. This way, people all over the world are able to find this information much sooner then would normally be the case when having to wait for a KB article/hotfx (in case this is applicable). In case the root cause is determined to be a third party problem, I will contact the respective third party to get their consent to post the resolution or workaround in the related post. During the life of an issue, I will update stuff on what tools we used to further gather diagnostic information, so that in case you come across the same issue and you want to create a case with us, you already know what data to provide. Issues will cover crashes and hangs, in both user and kernel mode. When an issue is resolved I will change the title of the corresponding post to reflect this.

Please note that the main purpose of this blog is sharing information as early as possible, as opposed to trying to teach you how to debug. For various interesting reads on debugging have a look at the "Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting" on https://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugging. Here are some great stories about challenging issues we've seen in Global Escalation Services (GES).

I will respond to comments, questions and suggestions, but please do note that I have a full-time support job as well. :)

\Rob