<p>I have an application that sometimes causes a BSOD on a Win XP machine.  Trying to find out more, I loaded up the resulting *.dmp file (from C:\Windows\Minidump), but get this message when in much of the readout when doing so:</p>

<pre><code>*********************************************************************
* Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized. *
*                                                                   *
* The Symbol Path can be set by:                                    *
*   using the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable.                 *
*   using the -y &lt;symbol_path&gt; argument when starting the debugger. *
*   using .sympath and .sympath+                                    *
*********************************************************************
</code></pre>

<p>What does this mean, and how do I "fix" it?</p>

[{'answer_id': 12043, 'author': 'Vaibhav', 'author_id': 380, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/380', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>you actually need to either download the symbols to your computer, or configure it to download as you go if you are online while debugging.</p>\n\n<p>Here\'s the link that talks about this in detail: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/debugstart.mspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/debugstart.mspx</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 12071, 'author': 'staffan', 'author_id': 988, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/988', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Quick answer is to </p>\n\n<p>c:\\> set _NT_SYMBOL_PATH=SRV*C:\\WINDOWS\\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols</p>\n\n<p>before starting windbg.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 12132, 'author': 'C. K. Young', 'author_id': 13, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/13', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I usually go to the System control panel, then Advanced tab, then Environment. You can then add the requisite <code>_NT_SYMBOL_PATH</code> variable. Then you don't have to do anything on the command-line before running WinDbg.</p>\n\n<p>The setting of <code>srv*C:\\Windows\\Symbols*http</code>:<code>//msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols</code> as suggested by staffan is fine. I usually prefer to use my own profile for storing symbols though (so that I don't need to edit the permissions for <code>C:\\Windows\\Symbols</code>, since I intentionally run as a limited user, for good security hygiene). Thus (in my case) my <code>_NT_SYMBOL_PATH</code> is <code>srv*C:\\Documents and Settings\\cky\\symbols*http</code>:<code>//msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols</code>.</p>\n\n<p>Hope this helps. :-)</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 92760, 'author': 'Kris Kumler', 'author_id': 4281, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4281', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As @Vaibhav noted, you actually need to download the symbols and configure windbg to use them.</p>\n\n<p>Also note the following:\n!sym noisy -- Activates noisy symbol loading\nlm v -- Use with "m" parameter to look at information for a loaded module.\nlme D sm - List all modules w/o symbols.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1493488, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Quicker answer:</p>\n\n<pre><code>!symfix\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>But it only affects the current windbg/ntsd/cdb/kd.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/12039', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1/']