Friday 16 August 2013

Install Debugging Tools for Windows as a Standalone Component

Annoyingly (after many requests on MS mailing lists) it is still not possible to download the Windows Debugging tools independently.

To get it, you need to go here

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Were you get a references to this page:

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After downloading and executing sdksetup.exe, in the screen below, chose the option to download the files separately:

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... followed by unchecking all but the Debugging tools for windows:

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Once the download completes:

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... open the download folder, where amongst a bunch of stuff that is not needed, we will find the Debuggers and tools MSIs (is it that hard to put that file for download independently!!!):

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Click on the desired one:

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... and the installer will do its think:
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After the installation completes, the files we want will be available in the Windows Kits/8.0/Debuggers/x86 folder:

For example cdb.exe:

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or Windbg.exe:

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And what do you do with these tools?

Well, for example, you can use WinDbg.exe to open the exe show in Generating Fuzzing Images and trying them on WebBrowser (IE) :

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... press g    (for Go)

... and wait for Windbg to catch an 'unhanded error' , exception or process crash :)