Are there any WinDBG replacements with a better GUI?

Question

I'm using WinDBG occasionally to analyze problems in production environment, where VS cannot be installed. There's no doubt it's an extremely powerful tool, but using it is a bit annoying. Even though the product is frequently updated, its GUI goes back to the Win95 days or so, and its usability is accordingly. Having to fight the GUI to layout the windows the way I want, and having to remember all those textual commands, is just quite low a standard for a modern desktop application.

AFAIK, WinDBG is pretty much built on top of CDB, which is a command line debugger. Being so, it shouldn't be that hard to built a modern days GUI wrapper that will replace the existing dinosaur. Has anyone ever done that? Am I the only one having those mixed feelings toward WinDBG?

(BTW, I know I can create a dump and take it back to where I have VS, but I sometimes have to debug 64 bit processes, and I don't have a 64 bit dev machine. Sad, but true)

Answer 1

I guess thats too much to expect. With such a large number of commands that it has, it will not be trivial to have UI that displays everything in fancy controls. It might also make it bulkier, slower.

However it does provide you with controls that any user mode application debugger should have. It displays most frequently needed information like call stack, local variables, threads and so on in seperate windows.

But if you need more advanced debugging feature, you alwalys have the command interface.

Answer 2

Hi there.

Have look at this if you fancy trying out a GUI to replace WinDbg.

Cheers. Jas.