Chapter 17. Testing and Debugging Drivers

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Chapter 17. Testing and Debugging Drivers

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

  • Guidelines for Driver Testing

  • Why Drivers Fail

  • Reading Crash Screens

  • An Overview of WinDbg

  • Analyzing a Crash Dump

  • Interactive Debugging

  • Writing WinDbg Extensions

  • Code Example: A WinDbg Extension

  • Miscellaneous Debugging Techniques

  • Summary

In many ways, this chapter should be first in the book. After all, it is not possible to design software (that works, anyway) without considering a testing and debugging strategy from the very beginning. Of course, since the purpose of the book is to present the Windows 2000 driver architecture, the focus has been to explain the way drivers work, not fail.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the concept of writing defensive driver code. By considering the ways in which code can fail, the design and implementation of the driver can facilitate the isolation and reporting of the error. The techniques covered in this chapter include a presentation of trace methods and procedures.

The chapter also presents some tools provided by Microsoft with the DDK and elsewhere. For example, the very useful WinDbg debugger operation is explained.

And, by placing this chapter at the end, it does make for easy reference whenever it is needed.

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The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book(c) A Guide for Programmers
The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0130204315
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2000
Pages: 156

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