Here is the steps we performed to debug the memory dump:
- Downloaded and installed the current “Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit version” from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx, choose “typical”.
- Launch the debugger via Start -> All Programs -> Debugging Tools for Windows -> WinDbg
- Set the symbol file path: File -> Symbol File Path. From http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/debugstart.mspx: For example, to download symbols to c:\websymbols, you would add the following to your symbol path: SRV*c:\websymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols. I simply copied and pasted SRV*c:\websymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols into the Symbol Search Path and then created a directory called “websymbols” on the root of the C drive. You don’t have to create the folder, the debugger *should* create it for you when it connects.
- I placed the check next to “Reload” and clicked OK.
- Load the dump file: click File -> Open Crash Dump and browsed to the memory.dmp
- Clicked Yes to “Save Information for Workspace”
- Sit back and wait.
- Take a quick look in c:\websymbols, you should see some stuff (symbols) appearing in this folder
- After some time (one minute to 5 minutes, ymmv), the debugger will be done loading and you will see “0: kd>” in the small grey window at the bottom left of the screen.
Note the debugger does not *have* to be installed on the server itself. All you have to do is have local access to the dump file. You could copy the dump file to a Windows XP workstation and install the debugging tools on the workstation rather than the server.