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WinDbg Preview FAQ

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We've had a ton of comments on our last blog post and social media, so here's some of the top questions we've been seeing. We'll be expanding this as more questions are asked and we have better answers.

The store is saying the app is unavailable?

Please comment in the comments below with your location and full OS version. There were some availability issues yesterday, but they should all be resolved.

What's missing?

There's a few larger things that are missing:

  • Command Browser
  • Scratchpad
  • Modules window
  • Event filters window

Besides those, there's a few command-line options, menu options. and settings that are missing. If you want use to prioritize something that you use often, go file or upvote feedback in the Feedback Hub.

Why aren't my workspaces working?

We're in the process of changing how workspaces work in WinDbg Preview. In WinDbg, workspaces save lots of different information that can be difficult to keep track of. We want to make workspaces easier to control and use.

We'd love your feedback on workspaces, so feel free to give us your thoughts in the Feedback Hub.

WinDbg Preview does ____ slightly different than WinDbg does, is that on purpose?

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. If something works differently than you expect, send it to us in the Feedback Hub, and we can take a look at it. Some places we've changed behavior on purpose, as we try to improve the debugging experience, and we want to hear feedback what changes are good and bad. Putting your feedback in the Feedback Hub will help us know if we should change it back.

Where can I find USBView and all the other executables that ship with WinDbg?

The store version only has WinDbg right now. If you want any of the other tools that ship with the debugger package, you can find them in the SDK or WDK.

Is WinDbg going away?

Not yet, but we hope that someday soon WinDbg Preview will be better than WinDbg in almost every way! You can still get WinDbg in the SDK or WDK for the time being. As we finish adding more features to WinDbg Preview to make it more like WinDbg, we'll be looking at replacing WinDbg. So if you have any major problems in WinDbg Preview, make sure your voice is heard by putting them in the Feedback Hub!

Why is it only in the Windows Store?

The store lets us release updates quickly and automatically and helps ensure that everyone giving us feedback is on a recent version. One of the problems with WinDbg today is that people will tell us something is broken when they’re running a version from years ago. With how quickly we’re hoping to fix bugs and add features early on in the preview, we need people to be able to seamlessly get the latest and greatest version. We’ll be looking at adding it to the SDK and WDK as soon as we’re more comfortable with the stability and features.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 31, 2017
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      September 01, 2017
      We hit some pretty unique problems. As you can imagine, WinDbg isn't your "average" store app, I wouldn't take our release experience and spread it across every Windows app. It also wasn't purely a store issue, we could've done some things differently, but it's our first time releasing an app through the store and we made some incorrect assumptions.That said, without the store we likely wouldn't have released to anyone yet. The store is incredibly valuable for our release plans and has made us more comfortable releasing sooner knowing that we can roll-out updates in days instead of weeks or even months like many other of our options would've given us.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2017
    please surport win10 enterprise x64
    • Anonymous
      September 01, 2017
      We do support Windows 10 Enterprise x64.
      • Anonymous
        September 18, 2017
        The Windows Store lists only one architecture: X86If WinDbg Preview really supports other architectures you should be able to list them in the Store. Look at Paint 3D, for example, it lists three architectures: X86 X64 ARM
        • Anonymous
          September 22, 2017
          We'll be looking at fixing this in a future update.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2017
    Can't we just get a separate download link? Many of us just don't want want to use that Windows Store thing.
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2017
    How can you add it to the SDK if your reasoning for using the Windows Store is to make sure people are on a recent version? I'm personally boycotting the store and I would move to Linux rather than having a Microsoft Account and a walled garden store forced on me...
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2017
    Why can't you release a MSI installer for the people who don't have access to the store?
  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2017
    When using insider preview builds in conjunction with Windbg preview. Is it expected to not be able use dll modules. ************* Symbol Loading Error Summary **************Module name Errorurlmon 0x80190194 - Not found (404). : srvc:\symbols\mssymbolshttp://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbolsThe dll server seems to be running but they won't load running: .sympath=srvC:\Symbols\MsSymbolshttp://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols and .reload -f even with noisy the extra output shows the about 404 errors
    • Anonymous
      September 02, 2017
      This probably isn't a WinDbg Preview problem. It currently takes a few days for symbols to show up on our symbol server after a build is released. If it doesn't work in Preview, but does work in normal WinDbg, I'd love to get more details.
      • Anonymous
        September 02, 2017
        (This is my account i previously wasn't logged in). It just worked! I tried deleting the C:\Symbols folder and retrying it. I did that a couple times and eventually after awhile I looked in C:\ and \Symbols appeared with pdbs and pingme.txt. I ran .reload and lm and can use it now. I am on Windows Insider Preview build: 16278.rs3_relase.170825-1441Thank you for responding - I am new to windbg and moving from vs debugging tools. Your channel9 videos are a good start since there is a lack of tutorials on youtube
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2017
    What about the x-copy deployment capability of the Windbg? For many of us the possibility to just copy the debugger on any other target machine do the trouble shooting there is a very important "feature". Is that going to change with the new Windbg?
    • Anonymous
      September 05, 2017
      Once we add it to the SDK and WDK (see the last question in the FAQ) it'll still be x-copyable as always.
  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2017
    The Store app tells me WinDbg Preview got updated yesterday Sept 4, with a "What's new in this version" that points me (via a non-clickable ;-( link) to https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windbg... where I can't find what's changed in 1.0.11.0...Could you please add some kind of "changelog" at the aforementioned URL?
    • Anonymous
      September 05, 2017
      We'll make sure future updates have proper release notes. Version 1.11.0 only has one change, we fixed an x86 crash.
      • Anonymous
        September 06, 2017
        Great!
  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2017
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2017
    Will there eventually be support for Windows 7? If so, when?
    • Anonymous
      December 08, 2017
      Windows 7 support will come when we look at adding it to the WDK and SDK.
  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2018
    JavaScript noob here. Is there a way to make "shared" functions, or a reusable library that can be called from other scripts? I have been enjoying writing scripts, and having success, but right now I'd have to cut/paste my helper functions into each script file since I don't know what I'm doing. :)