blog: debugger in a floppy disk

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
http://zabkat.com/blog/debug-without-visual-studio.htm

[CrossX]

Windbg is rather complex but these videos on microsoft site help you a lot

http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Defrag-Tools

(from show #13, #17 and so on)

[nikos]

the good news is that if you are familiar with simple debugging in developer studio you can do exactly the same things exactly the same way in windbg using the GUI only, no cryptic text command interface. Just use the toolbar and the same keyboard shortcuts to set breakpoints, single step, watch variables etc. No learning required

[svott]

Instead of installing Visual Studio in each virtual machine, have you considered using the remote debugger?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 5zaaa.aspx
This way you can control the program and perform all of your usual debugging activities from the Visual Studio install on the host computer while testing on multiple VM platforms.

[nikos]

that's an interesting idea... but how do one connects to a VM e.g. running under virtualbox? It is easy from the VM to get to the host but not the other way round

[svott]

I configure the VMs to use bridged networking in Virtualbox so they get an IP address from my router's DHCP in the same subnet as the host. Then I run the remote debugger (msvsmon.exe) on the VM, set it to No Authentication Mode (for native code only), and it's ready to accept debugging sessions over TCP. You still have to get your target executable over to the VM. Mapping a network drive or using Virtualbox's shared folders can help with this. Then a custom build step can keep the latest output synchronized to the VM. And then of course change your debugging target in Visual Studio to Remote Debugging, set the remote command to your executable path as it is seen on the VM, and you're good to go.

[nikos]

windbg got a facelift for windows 10
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windbg ... n-preview/
next time I get a crash report from x2 I will test it out!
(a beta version should be released shortly)