bug#12908: 24.3.50; file `emacs_backtrace.txt'?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:29:47 -0800
> From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
> CC: 12908@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> On 11/17/2012 11:09 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > That suitable place is in a subdirectory of the user's home directory,
> > at least on the most popular systems, according to the Emacs manual.
> 
> Sure, but it's under the user's control, and it's easy to
> change the default.

Unless we are going to ask each Emacs user to change the default so
that the file ends up in .emacs.d, we still have a discrepancy vs what
Stefan asked to do.

> > unlike Unix, a GUI program invoked on Windows
> > from a desktop icon normally has its standard error stream closed.
> 
> This is a problem not just for backtraces, but for everything that
> Emacs sends to stderr.

Which is nothing on Windows, except in debug builds with non-default
options turned on, which are used only by experts (who know how not to
lose this stuff).

> Perhaps it would be better for Emacs, on Microsoft Windows, to
> redirect stderr to a file, so that the information does not get
> lost.

It's not easy to do that, and it isn't worth the trouble, see above.
But if someone volunteers to do that, my hat's off.  Until then, we
cannot safely use stderr on Windows for information we cannot afford
losing.