Program crashes before or immediately after begin in project source

From: Michael Szuchy (szuchymj_at_jmu.edu)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: 30 Aug 2004 21:54:47 -0700

Several of my users have reported a bug in my program that I cannot
replicate. Right as they start it, they are given the standard
Microsoft error message "this program has encountered a problem and
needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." All of them have
XP and recently purchased new computers. Here are the things I went
through to try to diagnose the bug:

1. chkdsk, ad-aware

2. written a debug build of my program, that outputs to a text file on
every other line of code in the project source. despite the fact that
the text file output starts immediately after the initial begin, and
before anything is created or initialized, nothing ever gets output.

3. checked my units for initialization sections (there are none, and
only one finalization).

4. having one of the users upload their registry, and looking for
clues. Checking out the list of startup programs yielded nothing
useful. maybe I should look at (non-microsoft) services as well?

5. a couple of the users had Norton internet security on their
systems, but I tried installing on my test system, to no avail.

I am anxious to get this fixed – I fear that it is happening to a lot
more than several people, but that they just give up and don't bother
to tell me. What I am going to try next is compiling a bunch of exes,
ranging from a blank form, gradually building up to the full program.
Then write a control program that runs these exes in succession, and
logs at what point the bug happens. After that, I am going to try my
luck with one of the free debugging add-ons such as mmdebug. Then, I
will try to gather any useful info from the Microsoft error report.
Finally, I will try to convince one of my users to set up a remote
debugging session. Have I missed anything?

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