Why use WinDbg vs the Visual Studio (VS) debugger?

Question

What are the major reasons for using WinDbg vs the Visual Studio debugger?

And is it commonly used as a complete replacement for the Visual Studio debugger, or more

Answer 1

Here are some further links to help with using WinDbg, most are .NET specific.

• John Robbins talks about using cmdtree to create a command window.
• Here is a quick WinDbg/SOS cheat sheet.
• If broken it is, fix it you should has a bunch of WinDbg/Sos related articles, mainly around debugging ASP.NET.
• Here is an old overview of SOS from MSDN mag. It is about .NET 1.1 so its age is showing.