A BIG list of debugging resources

Here we are. It's 08:08:08 on 8/8/8 and this is my 100th blog post!! Woo-hoo! To celebrate, I had planned to present a list of the best 100 debugging resources that I am aware of.  Could I come up with 100? Well, not quite....

First off, I set myself some criteria. I tried to focus the list on things that are generic to debugging on Windows (with a bias toward usermode) without getting too side tracked into things that are too specific to any one problem domain (such as IIS, ASP.NET or the CLR) though I have made some exceptions. When I set out to compile this list I thought it was going to be a breeze. "There's loads of stuff out there!" I thought. However I found it quite tricky (especially while trying to stick to my self-imposed criteria) and came to realise that there are still relatively few resources for understanding and learning about low level debugging on Windows. What I also found is that if you keep digging you will continue to discover hidden gems on the internet but it takes longer and longer to find something new as the search continues. However, I got to the point where I realised the Pareto principle applied (as usual- as it does to most things in life) and that whilst it had taken me quite a while to come up with 80 resources it was probably going to take me 4 times longer to come up with the final 20. So I drew a line and here is the list.

Hopefully you folks know of lots more good stuff that I've missed....

 

Debugging tools or sources of debugging tools

Debugging Tools for Windows
Debug Diagnostic Tool v1.1
User Mode Process Dumper Version 8.1
SOSEX - A New Debugging Extension for Managed Code
Microsoft Application Verifier
Sysinternals Suite
DbgNetFx.exe (includes the useful SIEExtPub.dll extension)
Visual Studio
OllyDbg
MDbg

Major sites or blogs you should bookmark or subscribe to

If broken it is, fix it you should
ASP.NET Debugging
DumpAnalysis.org
Nynaeve : Adventures in Windows debugging and reverse engineering
Microsoft Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting
Debugging Tools for Windows documentation online
Citrix Knowledge Center articles about WinDBG
Microsoft Knowledge Base articles about WinDBG
OSR Online - home of "NT Insider", debugging seminar's and much more (free registration required)
Never Doubt Thy Debugger

Webcast or videos to watch

Determining When You Have a Problem and Beginning the Initial Debugging
Debugging CLR Internals
Diagnosing Memory Leaks in ASP.NET Applications
TechNet Webcast: Windows Hang and Crash Dump Analysis
Tess presenting at Oradev, 2007
Daniel Pearson: Debugging a Windows Blue Screen of Death
Understanding handle leaks and how to use !htrace to find them
MSDN Webcast: MSDN geekSpeak: Debugging with John Robbins
Overview of Debugging Tools (Simon Maddock on DebugDiag)
Debugging From the Trenches War Stories from the Real World

 

Debugging books

"Debugging .NET and Windows Applications"
"Debugging Applications"

 
"Debugging Microsoft® .NET 2.0 Applications" 
Microsoft Windows Internals: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 
Advanced Windows Debugging 
Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1
Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging
Debugging
The Developer's Guide to Debugging
Debugging Windows Programs: Strategies, Tools and Techniques for Visual C++ Programmers

 

Other articles, article series, sites or blog posts to read

Production Debugging for .NET Framework Applications
Root Out Elusive Production Bugs with These Effective Techniques
Windows Debuggers: Part 1: A WinDbg Tutorial
Debug Tutorial Series in 7 Parts
A word for WinDbg
Robert Kuster's thematically grouped WinDBG command reference
WinDBG from A to Z!
Johan's Debugging School
John Robbin's blog
Debugging Toolbox
Debugging topics on the AskPerf blog
Advanced .NET Debugging - because sometimes you need to dig deep
Application Debugging in a Production Environment
Next Generation Production Debugging
Microsoft Open Debugger Extension (early days, but one to keep an eye on)
The Debugger Extension by Dan McKinley
DebugInfo.com
Programming Tidbits: Store and Retrieve
Decrypt my World: Cryptography, Security, Debugging and more!
Discussions in Debugging Tools for Windows
KK's blog
Post-Mortem Debugging Your Application with Minidumps and Visual Studio .NET
John Robbins' articles on MSDN (29 and counting)
Notes from a Dark Corner
Use the Microsoft Symbol Server to obtain debug symbol files
greggm's WebLog
Driver Debugging with WinDbg and VMWare
Windbg by Volker von Einem
MindshaRE: Hit Tracing in WinDbg
Real world walkthrough with WinDbg
Download complete Windows Symbols Packages
Mike Stall's .NET Debugging Blog
Raymond Chen on debugging
Jeremy Gordon's site: The Go tools for Windows + Assembler
Mfartura's blog
Random Debugging Goodies (Jackson Davis's Blog)
Jigar Mehta's Blog
James Finnigan's blog
A hole in my head
WinDbg + SOS Cheat Sheet

 

I hope it's useful!

Doug