windbg: private pdb symbols

Question

what is the difference between (private pdb symbols) and (pdb symbols)?

Answer 1

(private pdb symbols) are the full symbols with all the details.

(pdb symbols) are public symbols, i.e. the symbols you would export to third parties to assist debugging.

Please see this for additional details http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms789520.aspx

Answer 2

Public symbols have Name, Frame pointer omission (FPO) for each function and private has alomost everything.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501184.aspx

Answer 3

Typically, public symbols are only enough to get a stack trace - function names, FPO data, etc.

Private is a superset of public and also contains global and local variables, types, and source line information. Private symbols provide a much richer debugging experience, but expose a lot of implementation details