Latest Debugging Articles

Adventures with _chkstk

By Silviu-Marius Ardelean - Published 10/14/2011

Silviu-Marius Ardelean offers some insight into _chkstk and stack corruption.

Writing a basic Windows Debugger - Part 1

By Ajay Vijayvargiya - Published 11/04/2009

Demonstrates the basics of writing a Windows Debugger.

Better Visual C++ Debugging

By Nick Wienholt - Published 07/08/2008

Effective use of the Visual C++ debugger is one of the easiest ways to increase developer productivity. Program database (PDB) files are one of the key elements in effectively debugging an application, and it is easy to set up Visual Studio to use debug symbols for binary files produced by other developers, including those at Microsoft.

Improving Visual C++ Debugging with Better Data Display

By Nick Wienholt - Published 06/10/2008

Code is run in a debugger for two main reasons: examining the branches of code that are being executed, and examining data values to determine why the code is behaving in a certain manner. Inspecting data values can be significantly improved by customizing the debug information. See how that can be done in the Visual C++ debugger.

Function Calls, Part 4 (What Exactly Is "this"?)

By Kiran Sanjeeva - Published 02/14/2008

Learn about a dissasembly view of function calls, and decipher the __thiscall calling convention.

Function Calls, Part 3 (Frame Pointer and Local Variables)

By Kiran Sanjeeva - Published 02/05/2008

Explore a dissasembly view of function calls, including organization of the stack for local variables and the concept of stack frames and frame pointers.