Debug exe with pdb

Typically, the debugger searches for matching PDBs in the following locations:. If you have built a DLL or an executable file on your computer, by default the linker places the full path and file name of the associated PDB file inside the DLL or the executable file. When you debug, the debugger first checks to see if the symbol file exists in the location that is specified inside the DLL or the executable file.

This is helpful, because you always have symbols available for code that you have compiled on your computer. To make sure that you have all the PDBs that you need for accurate debugging, install the debugging tools for Windows.

The 32 and 64 bit versions can be found at Debugging Tools for Windows. A useful tool that is installed with this package is symchk. It can help to identify missing or incorrect symbols. This tool has a large number of potential command line options. Here are two of the more useful and commonly used ones.

The symchk tool searches only for symbols for executable files. You cannot use wild cards search for symbols for non-executable files. When the linker generates. If you alter a DLL or an executable file—by using a resource editor or copy protection encoding, or by altering its version information—the GUID is updated and the debugger cannot load the PDB file. For this reason, it's very important to avoid manipulating the DLL or executable file after it is created by the linker.

NET to show the symbol paths that are searched, and to see if symbol files are found that match a given DLL or executable file. For example:. A symbol server is a repository for multiple versions of executable and symbol files. It contains either the symbol files themselves, or pointers to the associated symbol files. Debuggers understand how to use symbol servers, and can use them to search for missing or unknown symbols.

DLL and executable files are also available from the Microsoft symbol server. This makes it possible to debug crashes and examine code for operating system files that may not exist on your machine. If a debugger encounters an executable file or a DLL that does not exist on the system that you are using for debugging, it automatically requests both the symbols and a copy of the binary file from the Microsoft symbol servers.

This is helpful if you are debugging a component that has many versions—for example, msvcrt. This also helps debug mini-dumps that are generated on an operating system that is different from the system that you are using for debugging. Microsoft publishes all the PDB files for all operating systems and other redistributed components, such as the DirectX SDK, on its externally accessible symbol server. This makes it easy to debug an application that uses these DLL or executable files.

You can use the Microsoft symbol server to resolve symbols, together with any local symbols for components that were built on your computer. You can set up your computer to use the Microsoft symbol server, which gives you access to all Microsoft symbol files.

You can also set up a private symbol server for your company, team or network, which can be used to store multiple older versions of a project you are working on, or to provide a local cache for the symbols that you use from the Microsoft symbol server. When a debugger searches for symbols, it first searches locally.

Then it looks on symbol servers. When it finds a matching symbol, it transfers the symbol file to your local cache. Therefore, if you are debugging a process that includes many DLLs, it can take some time to resolve all the symbols and transfer them to a local cache.

The Microsoft symbol server allows you to obtain all the latest symbols, including symbols for patched or updated files. Enter the server address directly. This is used by all debugging tools. It is also used by Visual Studio, and is read and decoded when Visual Studio opens. Therefore, if you change it, you need to restart Visual Studio. Improve this answer. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook.

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Comments are closed. A perfectly good article blighted by a clickbait title. Thank you for the feedback. However, when I need to debug any live. Have you heard of dnSpy? It does not need the source code but decompiles the binary directly into C code.

Also no pdbs necessary. Much better than Visual Studio. But the best of all is that it pretty much looks like Visual Studio just with a better feature set. And it is open source. You can even patch mscorlib if you want to. Not until the comments on the blog. It does look like a great tool though. I am just beginning to learn Visual Studio , and already I can see the merits of becoming an expert in it as quickly as possible. Mads Kristensen Principal Program Manager. Jordan Matthiesen Senior Program Manager.

Justin Johnson.