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Take for example, 'kernel32.dll', the export table already provides the list of exported functions, then in what use case, would I need to download the debugging symbols for it from the MS symbol server?

2 Answers 2

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Most available public symbol files provide only global function and variable names (both exported and non-exported ones). A small minority (e.g. ntdll, kernel32, ntoskrnl) also include various system types (structures , enumerations) which is very useful for low level debugging. But even without types you can often guess a lot just from the function names.

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without symbols most of the calls would be like call dword ptr ds :[12345678] or call 45678976 or jmp 86753535 etc

with symbols it would be like call dword ptr ds:[exitprocess]

call foo32!blah

jmp some-non-exported-address-that-was-named-by-symbol etc

apart from names symbols provide typeinfo

like push foo->blah

instead of push [eax+60]

also exported apis can be ordinal exports then all calls will look like call ord1 call ord2 call ordn
without a symbol file you will have a hard time renaming and analyzing them
take a look at mfcxx.dll

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