NAME Win32::ErrorMode - Set and retrieves the error mode for the current process. VERSION version 0.03 SYNOPSIS use Win32::ErrorMode qw( :all ); my $error_mode = GetErrorMode(); SetErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS | SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX); system "program_that_would_normal_produce_an_error_dialog.exe"; If you are using Windows 7 or better: use Win32::ErrorMode qw( :all ); # The "Thread" versions are safer if you are using threads, # which includes the use of fork() on Windows. my $error_mode = GetThreadErrorMode(); SetThreadErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS | SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX); system "program_that_would_normal_produce_an_error_dialog.exe"; Tie interface: # use "if" so that your code will still work on non-windows use if $^O eq 'MSWin32', 'Win32::ErrorMode'; # 0x3 = SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS | SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX local $Win32::ErrorMode::ErrorMode = 0x3; system "program_that_would_normal_produce_an_error_dialog.exe"; Tie interface thread: use if $^O eq 'MSWin32', 'Win32::ErrorMode'; # 0x3 = SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS | SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX local $Win32::ErrorMode::ThreadErrorMode = 0x3; system "program_that_would_normal_produce_an_error_dialog.exe"; DESCRIPTION The main motivation for this module is to povide an interface for turning off those blasted dialog boxes when you try to run .exe with missing symbols or .dll files. This is useful when you have a long running process or a test suite where such failures are expected, or part of the configuration process. It may have other applications. It also attempts to smooth over the variously incompatible versions of Windows while maintaing binary compatibility. This module also provides a tied interface $ErrorMode and $ThreadErrorMode. FUNCTIONS SetErrorMode SetErrorMode($mode); Controls whether Windows will handle the specified type of serious erros or whether the process wil handle them. $mode can be zero or more of the following values, bitwise or'd together: SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS Do not display the critical error message box. SEM_NOALIGNMENTFAULTEXCEPT Automatically fix memory alignment faults. SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX Do not display the windows error reporting dialog. SEM_NOOPENFILEERRORBOX Do not display a message box when the system fails to find a file. GetErrorMode my $mode = GetErrorMode(); Retrieves the error mode for the current process. SetThreadErrorMode SetThreadErrorMode($mode); Same as "SetErrorMode" above, except it only changes the error mode on the current thread. Only available when running under Windows 7 or newer. GetThreadErrorMode my $mode = GetThreadErrorMode(); Same as "GetErrorMode" above, except it only gets the error mode for the current thread. Only available when running under Windows 7 or newer. CAVEATS GetErrorMode was introduced in Windows Vista / 2008, but will be emulated on XP using SetErrorMode, but there may be a race condition if you are using threads / forking as the emulation temporarily sets the error mode. Then again there is probably a race condition anyway since you are using the global version in a threaded application, but you should keep this in mind if you must support old versions of Windows. SEE ALSO Win32API::File includes an interface to SetErrorMode, but not GetErrorMode. The interface for this function appears to be a side effect of the main purpose of the module. The inteface to SetErrorMode is not well documented in Win32API::File, but is usable. AUTHOR Graham Ollis COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2015 by Graham Ollis. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.