How can I get WinForms to stop silently ignoring unhandled exceptions?

In your Program.cs’ Main function you should also ensure that you’ve wrapped your call to open the form in a try/catch. Additionally use the AppDomain.UnhandledException to catch exceptions. We also add Application.ThreadException too.

I believe the following will give you hooks into all the exceptions that can be thrown…

static void Main()
{
    try
    {
        System.Windows.Forms.Application.SetUnhandledExceptionMode(UnhandledExceptionMode.CatchException);
        System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadException += new System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventHandler(OnGuiUnhandedException);
        AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += OnUnhandledException;

        var form = new MainForm();
        form.ShowDialog();
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        HandleUnhandledException(e);
    }
    finally
    {
        // Do stuff
    }
}

private static void HandleUnhandledException(Object o)
{
    // TODO: Log it!
    Exception e = o as Exception;

    if (e != null)
    {

    }
}

private static void OnUnhandledException(Object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
    HandleUnhandledException(e.ExceptionObject);
}

private static void OnGuiUnhandedException(object sender, System.Threading.ThreadExceptionEventArgs e)
{
    HandleUnhandledException(e.Exception);
}