Installing Symbols for Debugging System Call Crashes

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To debug a crash that occurs during a call to a system DLL or to a third-party library, you will often need system .dbg or .pdb files, which contain symbols for Windows DLLs, EXEs, and device drivers. You can obtain these symbols from several places:

  • The Visual Studio CD-ROM contains symbol files for selected versions of Windows.

  • The OS Support Tools CD-ROM contains symbol files for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

  • You can download the latest symbols for your version of Windows from https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/symbolpkg.mspx.

    You can download symbols automatically from the Microsoft public symbol servers. For more information, see How to: Use a Symbol Server.

  • The third-party vendor might make the symbols available.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Specify Symbol Locations and Loading Behavior

Concepts

DBG Files

Other Resources

Debug Settings and Preparation