Problem with symbols using WinDbg

Question

I'm using Windows 7 Service Pack 1 x64, downloaded the symbols and installed them to C:\Windows\Symbols.

I insert C:\Windows\Symbols to File > Symbol File Path ... and _NT_SYMBOL_PATH.

0:000> .sympath
Symbol search path is: C:\Windows\Symbols
Expanded Symbol search path is: c:\windows\symbols

0:000> .reload
Reloading current modules
..................................
*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll -

When opening an EXE I got some error messages:

*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for ntdll.dll - 

0:000> !peb
PEB at 000007fffffda000
*************************************************************************
***                                                                   ***
***                                                                   ***
***    Your debugger is not using the correct symbols                 ***
***                                                                   ***
***    In order for this command to work properly, your symbol path   ***
***    must point to .pdb files that have full type information.      ***
***                                                                   ***
***    Certain .pdb files (such as the public OS symbols) do not      ***
***    contain the required information.  Contact the group that      ***
***    provided you with these symbols if you need this command to    ***
***    work.                                                          ***
***                                                                   ***
***    Type referenced: ntdll!_PEB                                    ***
***                                                                   ***
*************************************************************************
error 3 InitTypeRead( nt!_PEB at 000007fffffda000).

Did I miss anything? If I remember correctly, I didn't have such problems with XP.

Answer 1

Since the PDB is not being matched, it seems the symbols for your specific DLL version are missing (you probably applied some updates). You can instead use the MS symbol server to automatically download the matching PDB. Try this:

.symfix+ c:\symcache
!sym noisy
.reload /f