Vb5sp2ds.exe Contains Visual Basic SP2 Debugging Symbols (176547)

SUMMARY

Microsoft has made available to the public debugging symbols to aid in the identification of bugs within Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 with Visual Studio SP2 applied. Debugging symbols allow debugging tools like Visual C++ and Dr. Watson to obtain stack traces describing the functions within built components, such as Msvbvm50.dll, which are being called when a crash occurs. These traces aid Microsoft in diagnosing problems that cannot be easily reproduced on other systems.

MORE INFORMATION

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Vb5sp2ds.exe

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

To install the debugging symbols, you first must extract them from Vb5sp2ds.exe. When you run the Vb5sp2ds.exe, it will prompt you for a directory in which to extract the files. When the extraction process is complete, there will be two sub-directories containing the debugging symbol files. These files all have a .dbg file extension.

The .dbg files in the "x86" directory are for debugging Visual Studio Service Pack 2 on Intel platforms. The .dbg files in the "Alpha" directory are for debugging Visual Studio Service Pack 2 on the Alpha platform.

Different debugging tools have different methods of locating debugging symbols. Usually, you can put a DBG file in the same directory as the .exe, .dll, or .ocx for which it applies and a debugging tool will find it. For instance, if MSVBVM50.DLL is in C:\Winnt\System32 directory, you can copy Msvbvm50.dbg to C:\Winnt\System32 and most debugging tools will locate it. You should consult your debugging tool documentation for more information on installing debugging symbols so that the tool can use them.

All the .dbg files in Vb5sp2ds.exe include only Common Object File Format (COFF) debugging symbols. To use them with Visual C++ 5.0, you must copy Symcvt.dll from your Visual C++ CD-ROM to your Windows system directory. Drwtsn32.exe that comes with NT can understand the COFF debugging symbols without Symcvt.dll.