WinDbg Debug Adapter for Visual Studio Code

WinDbg-debug (for a lack of a better name) is a debug extension for Visual Studio Code that uses WinDbg engine to debug applications. It is suited for debugging native binaries compiled with MSVC compiler toolchain. Currently supported features include:

• Flow control - step over, step into, step out, pause, continue;
• Local variables with nesting - complex structures can be unfolded;
• Watch window - supports only C-style watches;
• Rust visualizers - extensions to prettify rust-compiled structures output in variables window;
• Thread / Stackframe switching.

Usage

In order for the extension to work, you need first to have WinDbg installed. To achieve this:

• Install debugging tools using chocolatey package manager, or
• Install debugging tools from official source.

After this, the extension is used as any other debugger - by configuring launch.json in Visual Studio Code. For sample configuration, please see this link.

Contribution

As multiple issues will likely be uncovered during extensive use of the extension, everyone willing to help are welcome to contribute. For details, please see contribution guide.