DBG311 - Windows Itanium Architecture and Debugging

An extensive, in-depth tutorial on the use of the Microsoft Windows Debugging Tools on Itanium platforms.

Level: Advanced
Audience:

Applications developers; systems software developers; device driver developers; system administrators; system integrators; hardware OEMs; support engineers.
Description:

In this seminar you will learn how to use the Microsoft Windows Debugging Tools to analyze memory dump files from Windows systems on the Itanium platform. You will learn how to recognize various problem “signatures,” how to get additional information from the debugger, and how to isolate the problems to the component level. We will address analysis of both kernel mode (operating system) and user mode (application) failures and “hangs.” A number of specific types of failures will be explored in detail, each followed by a memory dump analysis problem illustrating those principles. The Itanium processor architecture is covered in detail, along with the specifics of how Windows is implemented on Itanium. Finally, you will learn the specifics of "live" debugging of both Windows systems and applications.
Topics:
  • Windows Itanium implementation
  • Debugger setup considerations
  • "First look" memory dump analysis
  • Windows error and exception handling
  • Understanding and identifying common system failures
    • Memory access violations
    • Page faults
    • Pool or heap corruption
    • Stack overflow
    • Deadlocks and livelocks
    • Buffer overruns
    • Device driver failures
    • Hardware errors
  • Itanium processor architecture and instruction set
  • Understanding disassembled code
  • Itanium calling sequence and stack formats
  • User mode debugging principles
  • "Live" kernel debugging and remote debugging
  • Debugger extensions
Prerequisites:

Attendees must have attended one of our Windows internals seminars, or have equivalent experience.
Operating systems supported: Windows XP 64-bit Edition; Windows Server 2003 through Windows Server 2008 R2
Durations and formats: 4 days with labs
2 days lecture only
Labs:

The seminar includes a series of lab exercises that illustrate and amplify the principles shown in the lecture sections. The lab example files and a document providing detailed walkthroughs of all of the lab problems will be provided to the attendees.