Unable to catch c++ exception using catch (...)

An access violation is not a C++ exception. It's a windows Structured Exception. You'll have to use _set_se_translator() if you want to catch them in catch(...).

You should probably google for all reasons catch(...) is evil and make sure you really want to do this.

AFAIK access violation don't throw exception... at least not standard ones!

Maybe catching windows-specific "native" exception would help : https://web.archive.org/web/20081022160935/http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2488.asp

If you are on the Windows platform you might try looking at __try

However, note that there is not much use in continuing execution unless you are really sure you can isolate and handle the exception.