Debugging in VS without the source code

Question

I need to debug some assemblies due to they throw exceptions. It's my assemblies but I don't have the source code of them. What I have is their pdb files.

Is there any way to debug that assemblies by Visual Studio?

--EDIT--

Of course, I also can disassembly them to get *.il files of them. Would it help me somehow?

Answer 1

Actually there are a few ways to accomplish this:

1. Use dnSpy - a free opensource .net debugger and assembly editor https://github.com/0xd4d/dnSpy
2. Setup symbol server with dotPeek (also free) https://www.jetbrains.com/help/decompiler/Using_product_as_a_Symbol_Server.html
3. Use Resharper decompiler to load symbols for external modules in your visual studio. I think this is the easiest way. I've described the whole process on my blog https://cezarypiatek.github.io/post/debug-without-sources-part-one/

Answer 2

This is exactly why I paid for Reflector. Need to debug someone else's assembly? It works perfectly.

Answer 3

As far as I know, the PDB files are just pointers for debugging. That is, if you don't have the source code then the PDB files will only give you the stacktrace.

I don't know if Visual Studio can handle it, you might need to hook up manually to the process.