Method and system for injecting an exception to recover unsaved data

A system for injecting a crash into a hung program module and recovering unsaved data, the system comprising:

• a hang manager program module to inject an exception into the hung program module;
• a failure reporting executable program that in response to the exception injected by the hang manager program module instructs the program module to recover the unsaved data;
• a data recovery routine that the program module executes, in response to instruction from the hang manager program module, to recover the unsaved data;
• a user interface, containing a list of the unsaved data that was recovered, that is displayed after the crash reporting executable program receives notification from the data recovery program that the recovery of the unsaved data is complete;
• and
• a plurality of controls in the user interface for a user to select, from the unsaved data that was recovered, the unsaved data that the program module will recover.

A computer readable-media on which is stored a program for injecting an exception into a hung program module to recover unsaved data, the program comprising instructions that when executed perform the steps of:

• creating a second thread in the hung program module;
• activating the second thread to instruct an operating system to stop executing a main thread running in the hung program module;
• determining the next instruction that the main thread would execute if running in the hung program module;
• saving the next instruction so that it later can be restored to the main thread;
• changing the instruction stored at a memory location of the next instruction to a operation code that a processor defines as an illegal instruction;
• instructing the operating system to restart the main thread, thereby causing the main thread to generate an exception in the hung program module.