Embodiments of an application crash resist method and apparatus including an abnormal application termination service and an exception handler are disclosed herein. The service is configured to broadcast messages to cause the exception handler to be loaded by applications, and the exception handler is configured to stall abnormal termination of an application having loaded an instance of the exception handler. In various embodiments, the exception handler instances further report abnormal terminations to the service, and to receive instructions on how long to stall from the service. In various embodiments, the method and apparatus further includes a tray application through which the service obtains user inputs on how long to stall an abnormal termination from a user.