When you say “can’t be installed”, what specifically do you mean? Did you try installing on real hardware, your list is only for virtual environments.
The checked build has OFTEN been finicky to install. When I say finicky, I mean things like one version would assert in the WinPE phase on most hardware I tried. The fix was you had to build a new install DVD with debugging enabled on WinPE, so you could continue past the assert. The assert was about an incorrect ACPI table as I remember.
My experience in the past has been the checked build is painful, but on multiple occasions it has almost instantly found real bugs. Often the issue with the checked build is it finds so many little glitches with so many components (like user mode components too), it’s difficult ignore all the noise from things you don’t care about. Many kernel developers only use a partial checked kernel, which means you just replace some of the normal files, like kernel and hal, with the checked versions.
To counteract the unavailability of checked builds, driver verifier has improved over the years, as have compile time tools like static driver verifier.
I’ve noticed there are different philosophies in developers, some want bugs to be hidden or not easily visible, and others want any bugs to stand out boldly. I tend to be in the camp of “show me the bugs as vividly as possible”, because if I don’t know about a bug I can’t fix it. When a manager is applying schedule pressure on a developer, and their choice is an environment that sugar coats everything vs one that makes all the smallest problems brightly visible, I can understand how developers might not want bugs to be visible, as it makes it appear they are done. Unfortunately, bugs a developer doesn’t easily see are still there, and end users then experience the bugs instead.
Jan
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com On Behalf Of xxxxx@gmail.com
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2018 8:22 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Windows 10 Checked/Debug version Issues. Need help
Hello everybody,
I was looking for a Checked version of Windows 10 for a while now and that went all unsuccessful, here is my story :
After understanding that my “Visual studio Essentials” subscription won’t get me access to stuff i need to begin Driver Development, I decided to subscribe for a “Visual studio Professional subscription”, which i paid a lot for…, after what i gained access to a Download repository where there is indeed a downloadable ISO file named “Windows 10 (Multiple Editions) Debug/Checked, Version 1511”, which CANT be installed (I tried on Hyper-V, VMware, VirtualBox, all went unsuccessful).
Please guys, if any suggestion on what to do ?
Or should i develop only on Windows 7, if so which WDK version is the most suitable since im using Visual studio 2017 ?
Valar Morghulis !
— NTDEV is sponsored by OSR Visit the list online at: MONTHLY seminars on crash dump analysis, WDF, Windows internals and software drivers! Details at To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at