Windows Vista has a variety of fault-protection systems that try to prevent a crashing application from taking down your entire computer. When Windows Vista detects that an application has crashed, it terminates it and generates an Appcrash error report. This report is useful, since it can be sent to Microsoft Team. Most of the applications crashes give an exception code of c0000005.

Few APPCRASH Scenarios: (in the order of their occurrence Rates)

Scenario 1

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: explorer.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Application Timestamp: 47918e5d
Fault Module Name: msvcrt.dll
Fault Module Version: 7.0.6001.18000
Fault Module Timestamp: 4791a727
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00009c00
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1041
Additional Information 1: 72b2
Additional Information 2: 693d7799b8b778ed847472df9568cf8f
Additional Information 3: a1b0
Additional Information 4: 0d44ab9553a107ee7d95071a61aa480b

This problem can be solved, if the dll or supported depreciated dll is isolated to the application installation directory. For example: Renaming cmoctl32.dll file to .old and let it rebuild itself. Like trashing an ini file and letting it rebuild itself.

Scenario 2

When some core application components (VB and VC++ runtime, DHTML controls etc...) are missing the machine/build, we get the APPCRASH message for few of the applications.

Scenario 3

Problem Event Name:  APPCRASH
Application Name:  PhotoStudio.exe
Application Version:  5.5.0.91
Application Timestamp:  46861e12
Fault Module Name:  dtype32.dll
Fault Module Version:  3.9.4.4
Fault Module Timestamp:  3ebed48a
Exception Code:  c0000005
Exception Offset:  0000e004
OS Version:  6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID:  2057
Additional Information 1:  d6bf
Additional Information 2:  0623d5f43aa286e60fe956167dbc9d6f
Additional Information 3:  f083
Additional Information 4:  4aaeb79ec497d908d232129b547584f0

In these scenarios the application is not supported to run in Vista. Here we need the latest version/update to work with Vista. For the entire list of applications which works on Vista, refer to this link.

Applications which work with Vista

https://winqual.microsoft.com/member/softwarelogo/workswithlist.aspx

VISTA Certified applications List

https://winqual.microsoft.com/member/softwarelogo/certifiedlist.aspx

Scenario 4

Sometimes, on invoking the application shortcuts, we get the appcrash message with CLR20r3 error. This error occurs when there is a un-compatible .NET framework installed. It's an exception in Winforms that Under References, System, System.Data, System.Drawing, System.Windows.Forms, and System.XML might have been developed references to .NET framework 1.1.

In few scenarios, the application doesn't work if a higher version of framework is installed. In this case, we may need to create a manifest where we inform the application to check only for the framework 2 or 1.1 components.

Scenario 5

Some Application services which are not compatible to start with Vista, throw the APPCRASH message. An exception here is that, services which are running in session 0 will show a Session 0 Isolated OTS window.

Scenario 6

When you have a third party control panel applet (older version of application), we have an appcrash pointing to explorer.exe.

In this case, we will need to update the application with the newer version.

Scenario 7

Random crashes can also be caused by RAM errors. Vista uses something called Address Space Load Randomization (ASLR) to load the system into slightly different areas of RAM every time it loads as a security feature. XP doesn't do this. This means if you have bad RAM (or bad hardware causing the symptom of bad RAM) XP may not notice it because the bad RAM isn't in a system area. Vista, because it loads the system into varying areas of RAM, may crash with many different errors.

One Solution for this is to run SFC (System File Checker http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833).