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I have just been issued with a Windows 7 (64 bit) machine at my code shop. We run Visual Studio 2005. I filled out the Tools|Options|Debugging|Symbols panel, pointing to the Microsoft Symbol Server and caching to C:\windows\symbols, and started a new instance of our app. There was a pause as the MS symbol server was contacted, then the EULA turned up and I accepted, but then no symbols loaded. This is a pretty big problem as much of what's going wrong in my department is down to memory management which requires the OS symbols.

All the local symbols for the app loaded fine, as well as (apparently) MFC80U.i386.pdb. When I examined the Symbol Load Information for ntdll.dll this greeted me:

C:\Windows\System32\wntdll.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\wntdll.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

C:\Windows\symbols\dll\wntdll.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

C:\Windows\dll\wntdll.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

C:\Windows\wntdll.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

I have also downloaded and installed the Windows 7 RTM symbol packages (to C:\Windows\Symbols), both x86 and x64 just to be sure. Still no luck. The x64 ntdll.pdb file lives in C:\Windows\Symbols\ntdll.pdb\CFF40300FD804691B73E12CF2A150EE02 and is NOT called wntdll.pdb as the Symbol Load Information seems to request.

Is it the case that Windows 7 symbols just don't like VS2005?

+1  A: 

Try using another directory that you have complete control over, say C:\Symbols.

Sean Fausett