Opening minidump file (*.dmp) not possible in Visual Studio.NET 2005?

Question

I have created a minidump using win32 api [DllImport("DbgHelp.dll", SetLastError = true)] private static extern bool MiniDumpWriteDump(

dmp file is successfully created.

i am trying to open this *.dmp file in another visual studio instance to locate the place of the crash,

in visual studio --> FILE--> open project the dmp file option is not available.

i had choose all files in file open menu, and opened the dmp file. but i can't debug,

any idea why my dump file option in visual studio is disabled.

i know i can use windbg, and other tools, it will be easy for me to use visual studio as it is available for me.

Answer 1

I'm not 100% sure. But, I think even if you get it open in VisualStudio, VS doesn't support half the commands that WinDbg does for analysing a dmp. So, I'd just stick to WinDbg. WinDbg is a free download... so that's available to you too. It's not the easiest to use, I always have to open the help to find the commands I want, but it does do a good job.

Download here for 32bit:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.Mspx

Answer 2

It sounds like you are opening the dump correctly.

Here is what is says in the Visual Studio Help files:

"To open a dump file On the File menu, click Open, and then click Project.

In the Open Project dialog box, locate and select the dump file.

It will usually have a .dmp extension.

Click OK.

To find the binaries for debugging a crash dump, Visual Studio 2005 looks in the symbol search paths. To make sure Visual Studio 2005 finds the binaries, you can add a symbol search path in the Options dialog box or from the Modules window. For more information, see How to: Specify a Symbol Path."

You yourself say,

"...and opened the dmp file. but i can't debug"

So you are opening the dump file OK in Visual Studio, but what do you mean, "I can't debug?"

If you can't see your source code, that's because Visual Studio doesn't know where it is. Follow the instructions to set up the symbol search path.

If you can't step thru your code, that's because you can't do that with a minidump. The process that produced the minidump is gone, and it can't be executed further.

If you can't examine the call stack or contents of variables, that's because Visual Studio can't find the .pdb file with the debug info.

Answer 3

I have the same problem can't even start the debugger ... I should be able to see the assembly at least. I don't need the .pdbs (or have them for drivers I did not write). Why is Visual Studio 2005 not able to debug a minidump?