Category Archives: Debugging

Debugging a Process Launch

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Ofek Shilon

While this is hardly a hidden setting, I found myself spending too much time to find it twice already – the msdn page describing it appears low on search results, since it uses very different terminology.  So,  if only for … Continue reading →

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Extending Error Codes – to DirectX and Beyond.

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Ofek Shilon

$err,hr is quite useful as is, but it only knows how to interpret built-in error codes. Happily, there is an easy way to extend it, via a section in autoexp. All it takes is adding lines of the form – … Continue reading →

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Watching Errors in Visual Studio

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Ofek Shilon

System and COM routines often set an error code, that can be retrieved by GetLastError.   There are several ways to decipher this code – (1) Use the command line net helpmsg, (2) From the VS menu, select Tools/Error Lookup … Continue reading →

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2D Matrix Watch – Introducing autoexp.dat

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Ofek Shilon

Deep inside your VS installation (%VS installation%\Common7\Packages\Debugger), hides a bag of goodies called autoexp.dat. It is only semi-official, and almost entirely undocumented. Andy Pennell confesses its his fault,  but I suspect there’s more to it.  Admittedly, its still (as of … Continue reading →

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Watching members in release builds

Posted on February 21, 2009 by Ofek Shilon

A typical development scenario:  you fight a bug that raises its head only in production build. You step through your code and inspect member variables, only to be greeted by utter garbage. There’s an easy workaround, surprisingly. The calling convention … Continue reading →

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