WinDbg - Events

In this episode of Defrag Tools, Andrew Richards, Chad Beeder and Larry Larsen continue looking at the Debugging Tools for Windows (in particular WinDbg). WinDbg is a debugger that supports user mode debugging of a process, or kernel mode debugging of a computer.

This installment goes over the commands used to diagnose an Event hang in a user mode application. We talk about single and multiple event hangs, automatic and manual events, waitable object handles and common design patterns that you will encounter. We use these commands:

~*k

~*kv

~

~~[TID]s

dp <addr>

!handle

!handle <handle> <mask>

.dumpdebug

!uniqstack

!findstack <text>

Make sure you watch Defrag Tools Episode #1 and Defrag Tools Episode #23 for instructions on how to get the Debugging Tools for Windows and how to set the required environment variables for symbol and source code resolution.