Printer driver debugging

NTDEV
1

Hello,

How can i debug the sample plotter driver from DDK? What is the main steps
in debugging the printer driver.

Thanks

2

Here is some info on debugging a print driver. The below article uses
the oemuni sample as an example. But apart from the verbose debugging
variable, everything applies to the msplot sample as well.

**************************************************************
How to Debug a Printer Driver

Step 1: Install the latest debugging tools from
http://www.microsoft.com/ddk/debugging/. It is essential that you
install the latest version of the debugger. Read the debugger
documentation to become familiar with the numerous debugging commands.
The debugger documentation also contains a guide for setting up
user-mode debugging. You do not need two machines in order to do
user-mode debugging.

Step 2: Install the current symbols from
http://www.microsoft.com/ddk/debugging/symbols.asp.

Step 3: Install the latest checked build. Or, for maximum system speed,
install only the components you need. Typically, you will replace the
following retail binaries with their corresponding checked builds:

  • unidrv.dll
  • unidrvui.dll
  • unires.dll

For details, see “Partial Checked Build” in the index of the Driver
Development Kit (DDK,) which is available to everyone from the MSDN
Library.

Step 4: Install the checked build of OEMUNI sample or the printer driver
that you are debugging.

To begin debugging, do an “Attach to Process” in WinDbg for user-mode
debugging. For print drivers, you will either need to attach to the
printing application or to the spooler process (spoolsv.exe), depending
on what component you are debugging. Typically, the configuration DLL is
loaded by the printing application, while the rendering module is loaded
by the spooler process.

A special case is “FILE:” printing, which does not use spooling. In this
case, the rendering module is also loaded by the printing application.
Try the following:

  1. Install the OEMUNI sample on the “FILE:” port.
  2. Open WordPad.
  3. Do an “Attach to Process” in WinDbg and select the WordPad
    process.
  4. Start a print job from WordPad. You are now ready to debug the
    OEMUNI sample.

Some additional tips:

You can enable verbose debugging in Unidrv by changing the value of the
“giDebugLevel” debugger variable from its default of 3 (ERROR or
WARNING) to 1, or VERBOSE. To do this, execute the following debugger
command:

ed unidrv!giDebugLevel 1

The same variable will also enable verbose debugging for the OEMUNI
sample. To do this, execute the following command:

ed oemuni!giDebugLevel 1

You can also add your own debugging statements to the OEMUNI sample.
**************************************************************

  • Ashwin

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Paschalis Gallos
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 2:58 AM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Printer driver debugging

Hello,

How can i debug the sample plotter driver from DDK? What is the main
steps in debugging the printer driver.

Thanks

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