Getting started with WinDbg
Remarks#
This section provides an overview of what windbg is, and why a developer might want to use it.
It should also mention any large subjects within windbg, and link out to the related topics. Since the Documentation for windbg is new, you may need to create initial versions of those related topics.
Versions#
Important versions of WinDbg, for supported versions of WinDbg. See also a detailed list with historical versions online.
It’s important to note that there’s a versioning scheme change from older 6.12 to the newer 6.1 version. The older versions have low numbers (<100) in the third place while newer versions have high numbers (>6000).
In many cases, WinDbg versions provided for newer Windows versions still work on older versions on Windows, e.g. Version 10 of WinDbg can still be used on Windows 7. However, some commands may make use of API calls that are not available and thus fail. Therefore it’s good to have several versions of WinDbg available.
| Version | Description | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| 6.12.0002.633 | provided for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 | 2010-05-21 |
| 6.1.7600.16385 | 2009-07-24 | |
| 6.2.8400.0 | update for Windows 8 (?) | 2012-06-23 |
| 6.2.9200.16384 | provided for Windows 8 and .NET Framework 4.5 | 2012-11-15 |
| 6.3.9600.16384 | provided for Windows 8.1 | 2013-10-17 |
| 10.0.10075.9 | provided for Windows 10 | 2015-04-29 |
| 10.0.10586.567 | provided since Windows 10, build 1511 | 2015-10-30 |
| 10.0.14321.1024 | provided since Windows 10, build 1607 | 2016-07-29 |
Installation or Setup
Microsoft describes 3 ways of installing WinDbg:
- as part of the WDK (Windows Driver Kit)
- as part of the SDK (Software Development Kit)
- with the installer of the SDK and deselecting everything else but “Debugging Tools for Windows”
To get the installer, visit Download the WDK, WinDbg, and associated tools and scroll down to a section called “Get debugging tools”.
A well-known and convenient but inofficial source is Codemachine where you can also download older versions of the Debugging Tools directly.
The setup itself is straight-forward. Click through the installer until it finishes.
Debuggers
WinDbg is often used as an abbreviation of “Debugging tools for Windows”. It contains different debuggers:
| Debugger | Description |
|---|---|
| WinDbg | the debugger with a graphical user interface |
| CDB | console debugger, user mode debugger which runs in the currently open console |
| NTSD | new terminal symbolic debugger, user mode debugger which opens a new terminal (console) as the name suggests |
| KD | the kernel debugger, which runs in the currrently open console |
| NTKD | new terminal kernel debugger, opens a new terminal |
The commands are identical, except that there may be GUI related commands which don’t work in the console versions.