Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!roper
From: roper@june.cs.washington.edu (Michael Roper)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: "System Error:  Cannot write to device AUX"
Message-ID: <7252@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 89 14:46:45 GMT
References: <523@igor.Rational.COM>
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 17

You know, Dave, you wouldn't have this problem if you 
wrote cleaner code.

Just kidding.  The appearance of the message box means
that Windows is executing a debugging function called
FatalExit().  The function wants to dump a stack trace
to AUX, but unless you're using a debugging terminal,
the write fails and you get the message box.  I use
a monochrome monitor for debugging and get around the
problem by installing a nifty driver that redirects AUX
to the monitor.  The driver is called ox.sys and I think
it comes with the SDK, although I'm not sure about that.
If you can't find it, send me mail.

By the way, the fatal exit codes are listed in the SDK.

Mike Roper