Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!roper
From: roper@june.cs.washington.edu (Michael Roper)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Debugging Windows
Message-ID: <8761@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 19 Jul 89 20:57:44 GMT
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 35


Someone mentioned to me that they couldn't build
debugging Windows because the setup program bombs
in the middle of installation.  I have seen this
problem before and solved it by copying all the
necessary floppies to my hard disk (one subdir per)
and installing from there.  I don't know what the
real problem is but this approach has never failed
me.

The "Cannot write device AUX" message box that
comes up under debugging Windows indicates that
Windows is executing a function called FatalExit(),
which tries to dump a stack trace to the com port.
The message appears because you don't have a 
terminal connected to the port to receive the 
trace.  My preferred approach is to just use a 
regular monochrome monitor and a special device
driver called ox.sys, which traps AUX output
and displays it on the monitor.  The driver is
available either with the SDK or from Online,
I believe.  

FatalExit() returns a code, indicating the reason
for the abnormal termination.  These codes (RIPs)
are documented in the SDK and in some other Windows
programming books.  The function itself is documented
in the SDK.

If you run debugging Windows under Symdeb or Codeview
and RIP, you can just break out and start tracing
through code.  

Michael Roper
hDC Computer Corp.