Debugging WIN32 Asm Applications

[johnsa]

A quick question here

For some reason I don't seem to be able to assemble/link my apps with debug mode.
It seems to be some sort of version conflict between ml and link.

I would normally run as follows:

ML /c /Zi /Zd test.asm
LINK /nologo /debug /machine:ix86 /subsystem:console /pdbtype:sept /pdb:test.pdb test

Versions are:
ML - 8.00.50727.42
LINK - 5.12.8078 and I've tried 6.00.8447

I keep getting an error msg back from link saying the pdb is corrupt. Should I downgrade the ML version and to which one (which still fully supports sse2 etc).

Thanks

[dsouza123]

6.15 has SSE2 support.

According to an unrelated post in a thread about mixed language (C/C++ and VB) debugging of a dll
http://www.masm32.com/board/index.php?topic=3062.msg23725

However, i defenately prefare WinDbg and personally for me is the best debugging tool from microsoft!
VS6 does not supprot the new pdb format from 7.0 and 8.0,WinDbg does.

[Vortex]

johnsa,

You should try Olly debugger, it's a very powerfull tool.

[GregL]

johnsa,

dsouza123 is pointing you in the right direction.

Each new version of Visual Studio has a new debug format. The newer debug formats don't work with the older tools.  The ML 8.0 you are using is is producing a debug format that LINK 5.12 cannot handle. For debug builds you need to match up ML and LINK versions that work together. I would recommend using ML 6.15 (for SSE2) and LINK 5.12 or 6.0.