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dbgeng.dll

Windows Symbolic Debugger Engine, commonly referred to as the engine.

This enginge provides the functionality to examine and manipulate debugging Windows targets in both, user mode and kernel mode.

Common operations on targets include

setting breakpoins
getting notified of events
querying symbols
reading/writing memory
controlling threads and processes

Debuggers using dbgeng.dll

The debugger engine is used in various debuggers, such as

WinDbg
CDB
NTSD
KD

Because these debuggers use the same engine, they share the commands and don't differ in their functionality very much.

	User mode	Kernel mode	GUI/Console
cdb	x		Console
ntsd	x		Console
WinDbg	x	x	GUI
kd		x	Console

Although WinDbg supports both user mode and kernel mode debugging, it only supports one at a given time.

Source path

The engine has an internal source path. It is a list of directories and source servers where the engine tries to find source files from which the currently examined target was created.

After locating a source file, the code-line that correspond to one (or more) instructions can be looked up using symbol files.

Debugger engine application

It's possible to write extensions that are based on the engine. These are referred to as debugger engine application.

The header file that declares the functions for the API is in dbgeng.h.

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