What is my role when creating the memory dump?

I am study开发者_Go百科ing how to use MiniDumpWriteDump() method to create minidumps. After I read some articles, I got the feeling that all I can do is to provide some callback function and various flags to tell the OS what I want to dump. Then OS will collect various info such as call stacks into a dump file.

But is this all I can do? I don't want to use the so-called APIs, it makes me feel like swimming in the bathtub, not the ocean. Is there any way else to examine the computer memory freely? Could anyone provide some reference to achieve that?

Many thanks.

You can, however see another process's memory you do need to be in kernel mode. The API makes it easy to do from User mode. Your choice.

Kernel mode stuff and useful links I've grabbed quickly:

• The main one: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/default.mspx
• OSR : http://www.osr.com/ and their book
• Windows Internals from MS and look at the 'Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought'
• Advanced Windows Debugging
• A boat load of stuff from Dmitry Vostokov