Microsoft(R) Debugging Tools for Windows(R) Version 3.0 BETA Release Notes April 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents Overview What's New Known Issues Programs Debugger Extensions Software Development Samples Documentation Redistributables More Information Feedback ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overview Debugging Tools for Windows(R) contains tools to analyze and debug OS and application failures. The kernel debugger is KD.exe. It can be installed and run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows Whistler. KD.exe can debug Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows Whistler. The user-mode debugger is CDB.exe. It can be installed and used on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows Whistler. WinDbg.exe is the GUI mode version of the debugger. It supports both user-mode and kernel-mode debugging. It can be installed and run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows Whistler. WinDbg can debug Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows Whistler. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New This Beta of Debugging Tools for Windows contains many bug fixes and new enhancements. The debuggers are stable and more reliable than Version 2.0.23.0 and we recommend that you upgrade your debuggers to this new version. It is also a requirement to use this latest drop if you wish to debug POST BETA 2 versions of Windows XP; older versions (including 2.0.23) will not work on the latest Windows XP build. Here's a list of the enhancements to WinDBG 3.0: * Add ambiguous symbol detection (print a warning if a symbol name being evaluated is defined multiple times) * Better wildcard support in the 'x' command * Allow regsiters in the watch window (prefix with '@') * Many fixes for windows XP debugger extensions. * Modify WinDbg to save workspaces under HKEY_CURRENT_USER * Add context menus to the calls, CPU and watch/locals windows in WinDbg * Add a scratch pad window to WinDbg * Enhace !pool to print more infomration about a block (if it exists) * move extensions to winxp directory (instead of w2001) * Automatically expand .dmp files out of .cab * And lots of bug fixes! Windows XP specific enhacements (requires the new debugger AND windows XP) * Faster stepping * .kdfiles to transfer files over the debugger port ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Known Issues VC4 \ NT 4 DDK support: ----------------------- The NT 4 DKK shipped with VC4 compatible tools. This version of the debuggers does not support local variables generated by this default build-environment. The debuggers only supports local variables if a .pdb file is generated by the compiler and linker. To enable .pdb files in the NT 4 DDK, set the following environment variable. set USE_PDB=1 The next version of Debugging Tools for Windows will fix this limitation. Other issues: ------------- If you need to find source that was compiled at a different location than the current location to the source, use the ".srcpath" command. If you are using Windows NT 4.0, you need to have Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later installed for all of the features to work correctly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Programs This distribution includes the following debuggers: KD - Command-line kernel debugger NTSD - Command-line user-mode debugger CDB - Command-line user-mode debugger (variant of NTSD) WinDbg - GUI kernel debugger I386KD is also provided in the package to support backwards compatibility. It has the same code-base as KD. There are several debugger-related tools included with the package. They are divided into subcategories under Tools in the custom menu during install. These subcategories include 1) Helpful Tools and 2) AutodumpPlus. Both of them are installed by default. The Helpful Tools option includes these debugger-related tools: gflags - Global Flags Editor breakin - Utility to force a breakin in another process being debugged remote - Remote Command Line kill - Task Killing Utility list - File List Utility logviewer - Display API logs created with the .logext extension from the debugger symstore - Creates a symbol server for automatic symbol lookup tlist - Task List Viewer The following tools have been incorporated into KD.exe and WinDbg.exe. They are also provided with Helpful Tools as small stubs that point you to use the debugger. dumpchk - Dump Checking Utility dumpexam - Dump Examining Utility AutodumpPlus, is a console based VBScript usefull for troubleshooting hangs and crashes. AutodumpPlus scripts the CDB debugger to produce memory dumps and/or scripted log files containing debug output from one or more processes. This information is placed in uniquely named directories (i.e. C:\temp\Crash_Mode__Date_01-22-2001__Time_09-41-08AM) on the local file system or a remote network share, and each file is named uniquely (i.e. PID-1708__Inetinfo.exe__Date_01-22-2001__Time_09-41-08AM.log) to avoid overwriting older files with newer ones. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debugger Extensions Debugger Extensions are DLLs which WinDbg, CDB, NTSD, and KD can use to provide additional debugger commands. The Whistler debugger extensions are in the winxp subdirectory and include: exts.dll KDexts.dll The extensions that work for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Whistler are in a winext subdirectory and include: uext.dll kext.dll ext.dll logexts.dll The debugger extension DLLs for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 are operating system version, debug/retail specific. However, these extensions should properly support all service packs based on that build. Multiple versions of each DLL are included, to provide the necessary files for each variant. All DLLs are provided in both debug and retail versions. The debug and retail versions of these DLLs for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 are installed into four subdirectories, under the target subdirectory: nt4chk nt4fre w2kchk w2kfre The debugger has awareness of these subdirectories, and will not be able to find them if these subdirectories are renamed or moved. If a custom extension DLL is to be used, it should be placed in its own directory. The user can then set the debugger extension path variable so the debugger can find the extension. Debugger extension can also be loaded in the debugger using fully qualified path names. For Windows 2000 and Whistler, Ntsdexts.dll ships with the operating system, in %systemroot%\system32, and is not included in this distribution. All of the debuggers search for debugger extension DLLs in the following places: %NT_DEBUGGER_EXTENSION_PATH%; %DIRECTORY_FROM_WHICH_KDNTSD_IS_LAUNCHED%\WINEXT; %DIRECTORY_FROM_WHICH_KDNTSD_IS_LAUNCHED%\%TARGET_PLATFORM%; %DIRECTORY_FROM_WHICH_KDNTSD_IS_LAUNCHED%; %Path% where TARGET_PLATFORM is [nt4fre| nt4chk| w2kfre| w2kchk| winxp]. Use the "version" command in KD/NTSD to see what the extension search path, to note where extension DLLs are loaded from. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software Development Samples Header files, libs and samples for debugger extensions samples are provided in this package. They are not installed by default. The "SDK" component of the package must be selected during the install to get the samples installed. The samples will compile by using the latest Windows Whistler DDK or SDK. The header files and libs in this package should replace any existing version of the header files or libs that are shipped with the DDK or SDK. Using the samples and headers with the Windows 2000 SDK or DDK will cause compilation errors. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Documentation For documentation on how to use these debuggers and related tools, see the help file debugger.chm that is included with the tools. This documentation has been improved and expanded since the last release. You need to have Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater installed in order to use the documentation properly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Redistributables Please read the license agreement during setup for legal information regarding redistributable files. If this is a retail release, the license agreement mentions that redist.txt gives a list of the files that are redistributable. This is a Beta release and none of the files in this package are redistributable. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- More Information For more information on debugging, see the Debugging Tools for Windows web page, . We encourage people to get the new debugger off the web "often", as we will do lots of fixes, while keeping compatibility with NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feedback We are interested in your feedback on the tools. Please mail suggestions or bug reports to WinDbgfb@microsoft.com. This is not a support alias, but your feedback will help us to plan future changes for these tools and will make them more useful to you in the future. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------