   Why use Windbg?
  Hello,What benefits are there to using windbg than the debugger built into visual c++?Thanks,exorcist_bob   
WinDBG is free. Arguably this is less of an issue now that VS Express is fairly widespread.WinDBG is slightly lighter than VS.WinDBG has easy access to Microsoft's Symbol Server system, which means you'll always have debug symbol data for any Windows install - VS can't guarantee debug symbols for most of the OS, let alone the most recent updatesAnd of course the biggie: WinDBG is a kernel-mode debugger. This means you can do all the nifty poking and prodding of a debugger even to kernel-space (ring-0) memory/code. It also means you have much more control over user-space programs that are being debugged, when running in kernel mode.WinDBG has remote debugging capabilities out of the box, whereas IIRC VS only provides remote debugging in the expensive editions.And of course WinDBG is just so much cooler [wink];  How about soft ice? what are different from windbg?   ;  derek7: Softice is much more powerful, but I never found it particularly easy to use (gave up in fact) - you would want to be a good assembly programmer to use it properly. Although the same goes for windbg. I think the company that produces softice announced recently that support for softice is being discontinued(something along the lines of the end of an era).exorcist bob: I'm not sure why you would want to use an alternative debugger, if you are trying to debug your own visual studio project theres no need to use anything else. But if you feel you must, then you should _DEFINETLY_ not go for ring-0 debuggers. All you will need is either ollydbg(free) or IDA(expensive). Ollydbg is a good debugger, IDA is a VERY good dissassembler/analyser. Based on your question, I take it you don't know assembly. You would need to learn it to use any other debugger. But its definetly worth it.   ;Quote:Original post by ApochPiQWinDBG has easy access to Microsoft's Symbol Server system, which means you'll always have debug symbol data for any Windows install - VS can't guarantee debug symbols for most of the OS, let alone the most recent updatesHuh? You can set up VS to pull down symbols from the MS symbol server as well. Tools->Options-Debugging->Symbols.;Quote:Original post by derek7How about soft ice? what are different from windbg?It's not easy to get SoftIce to work with Windows XP. SoftIce is no longer in development (the company that made it merged with another company and SoftIce was folded into a larger suite of debugging tools under a different name - more or less). It does work on Windows 2000, but as DaBookshah wrote, some assembler required. SoftIce operates at a very low level - beneath or beside the operating system. If  you want to step through the assembly language instructions of an api or a system call - SoftIce will let you do it. SoftIce does not have a gui interface and mouse control is iffy, so it's best operated using keyboard commands. When SoftIce is activated all other processes on the system are halted. They resume when SoftIce is deactivated. This means that when SoftIce is activated, you can't alt tab back and forth to a list of keyboard shortcuts or use other tools. SoftIce is really best used for debugging device drivers and the like.  For user mode programs you'll be better off with VC and or WinDB. You can also find related and useful tools here.  ;Quote:Original post by Arild FinesQuote:Original post by ApochPiQWinDBG has easy access to Microsoft's Symbol Server system, which means you'll always have debug symbol data for any Windows install - VS can't guarantee debug symbols for most of the OS, let alone the most recent updatesHuh? You can set up VS to pull down symbols from the MS symbol server as well. Tools->Options-Debugging->Symbols.Holy crap, that's awesome... thanks!   ;  The problem with VS is that you have to enter the symbol paths each time you open up a new dump file.An advantage of winDbg is basically that it has more features, and you can write additional plugins too.   ;  Wait..........so WinDbg is useful?? I took one look at it and assumed that it was crap, apart from being ring-0.   ;  I use windbg together with VMWare when I want to debug really unstable/untrusted things.. Although, I use windbg only because SoftIce didn't really like XP/VMWare.. :(   