roocoon
March 12th, 2006, 12:33
Hi all.
I was about to ask why on earth Softice hangs up the system when I start it up (been through all the messages, fixes, etc, I could think of).
System is XP SP2 (latest updates) with Driverstudio 3.2 running a NVidia GeForce4 with its dreaded drivers (latest version).
Exact same problem with Win2K SP4 (also with latest updates and same NVidia drivers).
Running in full VGA mode without Universal Video Driver checked, gives me a corrupted screen but Ctrl-D gets me back.
With the Universal Video Driver checked, the system just freezes in place.
Well, I got it to work so here it is in case it helps somebody else.
Softice set to start in Manual mode.
In Display Properties/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshoot lower the hardware acceleration (I set it two notches to the left but it could be one notch is sufficient).
Start up Softice. Its screen should come up. Ctrl-D back to the desktop.
Raise up the hardware acceleration back to full. Softice should still respond fine.
It seems to have a problem with diirectdraw only during its inirialization.
Now about the Symbol Retriever.
People here have pointed out that we should use the symsrv.dll from the latest MS Debugging Tools and they are right.
Nevertheless, browsing the free tools at compuware, I came across a release of Symbol Retriever that works as is. It's the same loader but with a different included symsrv.dll.
Grab it here: _http://frontline.compuware.com/products/nsh/fixes/12568.asp
A question about it:
Why does it never create nms files for me even though I ask it to?
Also, it creates DBG files for only a few of the PDBs it downloads (that's in XP SP2 only -- in Win2K SP4 DBGs are created just fine).
And a question about the Symbol Loader:
In its options, I set up as symbol search path g:\symserver (which is where Retriever puts the PDBs).
In Win2K the Loader finds the symbols. In XP, it refuses to scan the subdirectories in that folder and works only if I specify the specific DLL's subdirectory.
What's different in XP that suppresses the subdirectory scan?
Thanks for any comments.
I was about to ask why on earth Softice hangs up the system when I start it up (been through all the messages, fixes, etc, I could think of).
System is XP SP2 (latest updates) with Driverstudio 3.2 running a NVidia GeForce4 with its dreaded drivers (latest version).
Exact same problem with Win2K SP4 (also with latest updates and same NVidia drivers).
Running in full VGA mode without Universal Video Driver checked, gives me a corrupted screen but Ctrl-D gets me back.
With the Universal Video Driver checked, the system just freezes in place.
Well, I got it to work so here it is in case it helps somebody else.
Softice set to start in Manual mode.
In Display Properties/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshoot lower the hardware acceleration (I set it two notches to the left but it could be one notch is sufficient).
Start up Softice. Its screen should come up. Ctrl-D back to the desktop.
Raise up the hardware acceleration back to full. Softice should still respond fine.
It seems to have a problem with diirectdraw only during its inirialization.
Now about the Symbol Retriever.
People here have pointed out that we should use the symsrv.dll from the latest MS Debugging Tools and they are right.
Nevertheless, browsing the free tools at compuware, I came across a release of Symbol Retriever that works as is. It's the same loader but with a different included symsrv.dll.
Grab it here: _http://frontline.compuware.com/products/nsh/fixes/12568.asp
A question about it:
Why does it never create nms files for me even though I ask it to?
Also, it creates DBG files for only a few of the PDBs it downloads (that's in XP SP2 only -- in Win2K SP4 DBGs are created just fine).
And a question about the Symbol Loader:
In its options, I set up as symbol search path g:\symserver (which is where Retriever puts the PDBs).
In Win2K the Loader finds the symbols. In XP, it refuses to scan the subdirectories in that folder and works only if I specify the specific DLL's subdirectory.
What's different in XP that suppresses the subdirectory scan?
Thanks for any comments.