Excluding a pdb from the symbol search

WINDBG
1

Hi all,
Is it possible to tell WinDBG to exclude specific modules from the symbol search? It seems unnecessary to sit there waiting for Windbg to tell me it can’t find symbols on the server for symbols I already know aren’t there.
Cheers,
Ben

2

Yes, there is.

Open ‘symproxy\symhttp.doc’ (included with the debugger package) and skip to the ‘Exclusions’ section, which describes how to set this up with a symsrv.ini file. Though the documentation is included with the symproxy documentation, the feature is intrinsic to symsrv.dll and can be used on individual debugger client machines (if desired).

  • S (Msft)

From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [xxxxx@lists.osr.com] on behalf of xxxxx@nchsoftware.com [xxxxx@nchsoftware.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 7:22 PM
To: Kernel Debugging Interest List
Subject: [windbg] Excluding a pdb from the symbol search

Hi all,
Is it possible to tell WinDBG to exclude specific modules from the symbol search? It seems unnecessary to sit there waiting for Windbg to tell me it can’t find symbols on the server for symbols I already know aren’t there.
Cheers,
Ben

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3

Yes it is. If I recall correctly, exactly how to do so is buried somewhere
in the documentation for symbol server proxy. That’s a DOC file somewhere
in your windbg installation.

Good luck,

Mm
On Jul 27, 2011 10:23 PM, wrote:
> Hi all,
> Is it possible to tell WinDBG to exclude specific modules from the symbol
search? It seems unnecessary to sit there waiting for Windbg to tell me it
can’t find symbols on the server for symbols I already know aren’t there.
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
> —
> WINDBG is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

4

make a file symsrv.ini in windbg folder put contents like this and be
done with it

this will still print the ERROR blah . foo is not wow wow but will not
go to ms symbol server

if not excluded
DBGHELP: No debug info for C:\WINDOWS\system32\shdoclc.dll. Searching
for dbg file
SYMSRV: f:\symbols\shdoclc.dbg\48023CD788000\shdoclc.dbg not found
SYMSRV: http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols/shdoclc.dbg/48023CD788000/shdoclc.dbg
not found

if excluded

SYMSRV: normaliz.pdb is in the file exclusion list
DBGHELP: C:\WINDOWS\system32\normaliz.pdb - file not found
DBGHELP: normaliz.pdb - file not found
*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export
symbols for C:\WINDOWS\system32\Normaliz.dll -
DBGHELP: Normaliz - export symbols

;start of symsrv.ini
[exclusions]
Normaliz.*
xpsp2res.*
;end of symsrv.ini

On 7/28/11, xxxxx@nchsoftware.com wrote:
> Hi all,
> Is it possible to tell WinDBG to exclude specific modules from the symbol
> search? It seems unnecessary to sit there waiting for Windbg to tell me it
> can’t find symbols on the server for symbols I already know aren’t there.
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
> —
> WINDBG is sponsored by OSR
>
> For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
> http://www.osr.com/seminars
>
> To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
> http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer
>

–
thanks and regards

raj_r

5

Great! Thanks for that everyone. I configured the symsrv.ini file and now my start-up is lightning fast!
Cheers,
Ben