Starting to learn Windbg

After being troubled by an issue that I simply did not have the knowledge to debug, I've just decided that I have to learn how to use Windbg. My only problem: I have no clue where to start :-( I'm not really a WinApi-Guy, having use languages that abstract the Windows Api away from me usually.

So I just wonder: What is the best souce (Book, Website) to learn Windbg for someone who knows programming but not much about the inner depths of Windows? (And yes, I do read oldnewthing every day :))

There's a few excellent blogs out there that help to gain windbg proficiency on an everyday basis:

• http://www.dumpanalysis.com/blog">Dr. Debugalov
• http://www.nynaeve.net">Nynaeve</a></li>
• http://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugging">Advanced Windows Debugging
• http://blogs.msdn.com/debuggingtoolbox">Debugging Toolbox
• http://www.debugtricks.com">Debugging Tricks
• http://www.debuginfo.com">Oleg Starodumov
• http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=ivan+brugiolo+windbg&qt_s=Search+Groups">List of posts from/to Ivan Brugiolo
• http://voneinem-windbg.blogspot.com/">Windbg by Volker von Einem

I, personally, just started using windbg for all my debugging tasks and soon enough there were very questions I could not answer and very few problems I could not solve. Powerful and exciting tool.

For a book, try

Advanced Windows Debugging (Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)

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Also, for a great reference sheet, see

Common WinDbg Commands (Thematically Grouped) by Robert Kuster.

A great blog to check out is If broken it is, fix it you should. There's actually some posts on getting started in WinDbg.

• Advanced Windows Debugging by Hewardt and Pravat (best for general Win32 stuff)
• Debugging .Net 2.0 Applications by John Robbins (if you need SOS for .Net)
• The NT debugging blog (quite low level but they've just posted a good set of links.

My first experience with a debugger (actually soft ICE) has been a ... well ... sort of crack. There are some guide on the net about how to use a debugger to search for events and bypass/change program behavious. Once you've mastered the basic debugger skills, you can take any simple application (or your own applications) and play with it.

(This is just one of the guides i was talking about: http://www.woodmann.com/krobar/other/patch36.txt )

Debugging .NEt Applications has a chapter on how to use WinDbg