Windows 10 download windbg

Start here for an overview of Debugging Tools for Windows. This tool set includes WinDbg and other debuggers.

Install Debugging Tools for Windows

You can get Debugging Tools for Windows as part of a development kit or as a standalone tool set:

• As part of the WDK

  Debugging Tools for Windows is included in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK). To get the WDK, see Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).

• As part of the Windows SDK

  Debugging Tools for Windows is included in the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK). To download the installer or an ISO image, see Windows 10 SDK on Windows Dev Center.

• As a standalone tool set

  You can install the Debugging Tools for Windows alone, without the Windows SDK or WDK, by starting installation of the Windows SDK and then selecting only Debugging Tools for Windows in the list of features to install (and clearing the selection of all other features). To download the installer or an ISO image, see Windows 10 SDK on Windows Dev Center.

Get started with Windows Debugging

To get started with Windows debugging, see Getting Started with Windows Debugging.

To get started with debugging kernel-mode drivers, see Debug Universal Drivers - Step by Step Lab (Echo Kernel-Mode). This is a step-by-step lab that shows how to use WinDbg to debug Echo, a sample driver that uses the Kernel-Mode Driver Framework (KMDF).

Debugging environments

If your computer has Visual Studio and the WDK installed, then you have six available debugging environments. For descriptions of these environments, see Debugging Environments.

All of these debugging environments provide user interfaces for the same underlying debugging engine, which is implemented in the Windows Symbolic Debugger Engine (Dbgeng.dll). This debugging engine is also called the Windows debugger, and the six debugging environments are collectively called the Windows debuggers.

Windows debuggers

The Windows debuggers can run on x86-based, x64-based, or ARM-based processors, and they can debug code that is running on those same architectures. Sometimes the debugger and the code being debugged run on the same computer, but other times the debugger and the code being debugged run on separate computers. In either case, the computer that is running the debugger is called the host computer, and the computer that is being debugged is called the target computer. The Windows debuggers support the following versions of Windows for both the host and target computers.

• Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016
• Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
• Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Symbols and symbol files

Symbol files store a variety of data that are not required when running the executable binaries, but symbol files are very useful when debugging code. For more information about creating and using symbol files, see Symbols for Windows debugging (WinDbg, KD, CDB, NTSD).

Blue screens and crash dump files

If Windows stops working and displays a blue screen, the computer has shut down abruptly to protect itself from data loss and displays a bug check code. For more information, see Bug Checks (Blue Screens). You analyze crash dump files that are created when Windows shuts down by using WinDbg and other Windows debuggers. For more information, see Crash dump analysis using the Windows debuggers (WinDbg).

Tools and utilities

In addition to the debuggers, Debugging Tools for Windows includes a set of tools that are useful for debugging. For a full list of the tools, see Tools Included in Debugging Tools for Windows.

Additional documentation

For additional information related to Debugging Tools for Windows, see Debugging Resources. For information on what's new in Windows 10, see Debugging Tools for Windows: New for Windows 10.