before debugging ...

.. you need to make sure you have the right pdb
on microsoft website there is a debugging package(holding WinDbg and other debugging tools) which has a tool called SymChk which can be used to bring the right pdb files from microsoft website.
the tool reads the version of your dll and exe files and tries to find the corresponding pdb for that version.


C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows>symchk /r c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322 /S srv*c:\dbg\symbols\*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

/r tells symchk to look in the 'c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322' path and in all subdirectories in it

/s Specifies the directories containing symbols
c:\dbg\symbols\ is the location where the symbols are downloaded

if you need a specific DLL file to get symbol for, you can use this (for ole32.dll for example)

symchk c:\WINDOWS\system32\ole32.dll /S srv*c:\dbg\symbols\*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

Now, in WinDbg you can set in File menu the location of the symbols.

also, if you want to start using adplus tool (info:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;286350) you must set the debugging symbols path in the environment variable
_NT_SYMBOL_PATH
in the value put the path of the symbols(c:\dbg\symbols\)

usually adplus is used in 2 modes:
unexpected haning(used with -hang)
unexpected crushing (used with -crash)
see the msdn link above

i am using it for crashing:
"C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows\ADPlus" -crash -pn MyApp.exe -o c:\dumps

MyApp.exe must not include a path just filename.

another tool useful is this one: gflags (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;286470)
usually pageheap is used like this:
"C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows\gflags.exe" /p enable MyApp.exe /full

again, MyApp.exe must not include a path just filename.