Debugging Tools for Windows is a comprehensive, freely available package that contains powerful debuggers and tools to aid developers in becoming more efficient in their day-to-day jobs.
The download point allows you to choose between the 32- and 64-bit (Itanium and x64) versions. Setup is straightforward, and the express setup is sufficient to get all the necessary tools installed. One caveat exists; if you plan on developing custom debugger extensions (as we will show in
Chapter 11, "Writing Custom Debugger Extensions"), you must do a custom install and elect to install the SDK as well.
Table 1.1 shows all the tools that come as part of this package.
Not surprisingly, the most important tool is the debugger itself.
Chapter 2, "Introduction to the Debuggers," and
Chapter 3, "Debuggers Uncovered," are dedicated to explaining how the debuggers work, how to set them up, and how to most effectively use them.
The tools introduction in this chapter details the most interesting tools we use throughout the book. When the download point specifies 'Part of Debugging tools for Windows' for each tool, it is required that Debugging Tools for Windows be installed.
Please note that at the time of writing, the most recent version was 6.6.0007.5. It is quite possible that a new version of the Windows debuggers will be released by the time you read this book. Even so, there should be relatively minor changes in the debugger output, and all the material in the book should still apply and be easily followed. The debugger download URL also keeps a history of debug versions (going back two to three releases) that can be downloaded. If you want to follow the same version, you can download the Debugging Tools for Windows corresponding to version 6.6.0007.5.