Debugging windows running in VMWare

Ideal Windows debugging setup:
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Run target OS in VMWare and run WinDBG on host machine
Advantages:
a) No extra hardware required
b) No Serial cable required
c) Carry your debug environment anywhere

Steps
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1. In VMWare add a new serial port to the target OS image
Add a new serial port, set it to
Connect at power on checked
"Use named pipe"
This end is the server
The other end is an application
yield CPU on poll: unchecked
2. Start target OS in VMWare.
3. In c:\boot.ini, make the usual debug entries
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect /debug /baudrate=115200 /debugport=com1
4. Reboot the target machine

5. Start WinDBG on host OS using command line
"C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows\windbg.exe" -b -k com:pipe,port=\\.\pipe\com_1,resets=0


To download Windows symbols from Microsoft Public symbol download server add this to symbol file path in Windbg
SRV*c:\websymbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
Note:Replace c:\websymbols with any local directory on your machine where you want to store the symbols

You are done!