Is WinDbg supposed to be so excruciatingly slow?

Question

I\'m trying to analyze some mini crash dumps. I\'m using Windows 10 Pro Build 1607 and WinDbg 10.0.14321.1024. I have my symbol file path set to

SRV*C:\\Sym         


        

Answer 1

This is the symbol server being really slow. Other have noticed as well: https://twitter.com/BruceDawson0xB/status/772586358556667904

Your symbol path contains a local cache so it should load faster next time around, but it seems that the cache is not effective, I can't tell really why (I suspect the downloaded symbols are not a perfect match and they are being downloaded again, every time).

I would recommend modifying the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH (or whatever is the way your sympath is initialized) to SRV*C:\SymCache only, ie. do not attempt to automatically download, just use the symbols you already have cached locally. The image should open fairly fast. Only enable the symbols server if you discover missing symbols.