Process memory dump with Windows API

Question

Is it possible to dump the occupied memory of a process with Windows 7 API function calls instead of having to install external tools like Windbg? Taskmanager supports simple one-click memory dumps, leading me to believe that it might use the API to pull that off.

I should add, that I'm talking about memory dumps of running applications. Not those that just crashed.

Answer 1

There is an API for this: MiniDumpWriteDump. It just requires you to pass in a few handles and an exception structure. To use it you will have to link against the Dbghelp.lib library.

This will create a dump file that is compatible with Visual Studio, so you can load it in and inspect the process memory, callstack .etc