What's New in DriverStudio 3.2

Visual SoftICE

Visual SoftICE is a two-machine, system-wide debugger that has a multiple-window, configurable, graphical user interface (GUI) to help developers debug kernel-mode drivers, applications or the entire system easily. The latest release of Visual SoftICE features significant improvements to performance, functionality and the user interface, including:

• The Device-Driver Page is a remote development and debugging tool that provides system exploration as well as driver and system management.  This tool can be used to:
  
  • Remotely install, remove or update driver or kernel services including automated scripting
  • Enable or disable drivers or kernel services
  • Explore the target machine from the DeviceNode/Device perspective
• Visual SoftICE now supports VMware 4.0 or later
• Physical Address Extension (PAE) support to address memory up to 4GB
• 8 new commands: SVCMGR, FILES, CT, IRB, URB, SRB, BPS, BH
• PCMCIA (CardBus) support for debugging laptop targets, and expanded PCI NIC support, including gigabit chipsets, and the Intel VE100 chipset
• Significant performance and usability improvements. 

SoftICE

SoftICE supports kernel-mode and user-mode debugging on a single machine, on two machines using a serial line or on remote machines over a TCP/IP connection. With the release of DriverStudio 3.2, SoftICE now offers:

• SoftICE Crash Dump Utility - parses a crash dump and gives a quick summary of why the crash occurred as well as a mechanism to retain SoftICE settings after a crash and reboot. The user can view and optionally save, merge, or email the SoftICE history and other pertinent SoftICE information that were in place at the time of the crash. No longer will the user experience the frustration of losing the SoftICE state after a system crash and reboot.
  
• User Interface Enhancements including:
  
  • TAB key autocompletion to many of the SoftICE commands
  • C derived Expression Evaluator
  • MACROS that can be run on POPUP and POPDOWN
  • Regular Expressions have been added to a number of commands
• Five new commands: FILTER, DEVNODE, BPLOAD, PTR, IOCTL
• New Tutorial and Sample chapter