Store and manage multiple PDB files?

Question

when building my application some PDB files are generated which are useful during debugging. Now when a user experiences a crash, I get the dump-file and using this I can analyse the problem.

Unfortunately for this the version of the PDB file needs to fit to the build the crashdump was generated from - or in other words, for every release I build I need to store the related PDB in order to have them available for later analysis.

Now I know that MS offers a product named "symbolserver" which does the complete job of storing and managing the PDB files of a build. Unfortunately this is a way too complex solution for me.

So my question: is there an easy to use and simply to handle alternative available for storing multiple versions of a PDB files in order to have them available for crash dump analysis?

Thanks!

add them with [symstore.exe to symbol server](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/debug/using-symstore#transaction-examples) — magicandre1981, Apr 11 '19 at 15:08
@magicandre1981 as mentioned in my posting: I want to avoid that symbolserver-stuff — Elmi, Apr 12 '19 at 05:39

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 09 '19 at 18:36

Note that you don't need a symbol server, just a directory. See also How to set up a symbol server. With symstore, you only need to set up your symbol path once, save it in the WinDbg workspace or in Visual Studio and you're ready to go.

The alternative is to manage create a folder with version number of your build and move all PDBs there.

The debugging then goes like this (WinDbg):

lm m <yourapp>

to find out the version number

.sympath C:\path\to\symbols\<version>

Similar in Visual Studio: you need to find out the version and then change the symbol path. It's always 2 steps instead of 0.

Store and manage multiple PDB files?

1 Answers1