Do you mean start the debugger by itself and attach the app before it faults, or run the app with the debugger? it could be either way. The later is a bit easier to do. I just wanted to get rid of the debugger startup code when an exception occurs... if you've already messed a lot with the memory, you may not be able to start the debugger. For example, the debugger launch code uses the Heap (from CreateProcess), which be give strange results...
Sorry for the noise, and thanks for insisting on common sense. There was nothing wrong with any of those patches after all.
no sweat ;-)
A+