I just had my first BSOD of 2010. I went looking for the memory dump file and found that it had been auto-deleted, replaced with a minidmp file. Seems that this is the default behaviour on Windows 7 under certain circumstances, e.g. if you are a “home” user with less than 25G of free space. The Startup and Recovery systems property page makes no mention of this new behaviour. You have to google to find the info on this new design.

I don’t mind Microsoft making design decisions based on how they think their customer would like the system to operate. I learned during my days at AOL that some products are designed for the mass market. That’s why I’m in the 5% Linux crowd.

I just don’t understand why they didn’t put the new design controls on the Startup and Recovery page. Why hide the info so that only a crafty Google search would find it? Why make your customer do everything via regedit?