Using the SymChk.exe utility to download symbols

You can use the SymChk.exe utility to verify symbols and to build a local symbol cache in a convenient, noninvasive way. The SymChk.exe utility is included with the Debugging Tools for Windows package. SymChk.exe is a command-line tool. You may want to add the folder of the Debugging Tools for Windows package to the PATH environment variable on your system so that you can access this tool easily from any command prompt.

To use the SymChk.exe utility to download symbol files for all of the components in the Windows\System32 folder, use the following command-line command:
symchk /r c:\windows\system32 /s SRV*c:\symbols\*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
In this example:
  • /r c:\windows\system32 finds all symbols for files in the System32 folder and any subfolders.
  • /s SRV*c:\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols specifies the symbol path to use for symbol resolution. In this case, c:\symbols is the local folder where the symbols will be copied from the symbol server.
To obtain more information about the command-line options for SymChk.exe, type symchk /? at a command prompt. Other options include the ability to specify the name or the process ID (PID) of an executable file that is running.
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