Profiling x86 executable with Dependency Walker hangs on Windows 7 x64

Question

Under Windows 7 x64, when I try to profile an x86 executable with the latest version of Dependency Walker (2.2.6000) the profiling process always hangs at a certain point. Most of the time the last DLL that is loaded is c:\windows\syswow64\URLMON.DLL, so it seems that something inside that DLL is causing a problem. Profiling the same executable on Windows 7 x86 works flawlessly.

I have googled quite extensively, but couldn't come up with a solution to the problem. One suggestion that I found was to uninstall IE 8 or IE 9 and replace it with IE 7, but this doesn't really help. The only effect that I can observe is that with IE 7 the profiling process hangs at a different DLL (iertutil.dll, if I remember correctly, also from the system's syswow64 folder).

So my question is: How can I get Dependency Walker to profile x86 applications on x64 Windows 7? Of course, it would also be nice to know why the problem exists in the first place :-)

Some final notes:

• I am using the x86 version of Dependency Walker because I want to profile an x86 executable
• Running Dependency Walker as administrator does not help
• All profiling options marked as "may fail on WOW64" are disabled
• The executable I am currently using as a test case to reproduce the problem is the Sumatra PDF viewer (download link) because it is a simple .exe that does not need installation

Answer 1

I've had to switch to using a GitHub project: Dependencies.

As of Windows 10 1809 (10.0.17763) I'm unable to run even depends.exe version 2.2.10011 included in 10.0.10586.0 WDK.

Answer 2

Updated instruction based on @Stone Free's comments

The download link you need has changed to:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42273

Go down to the 2. Install WDK 10 section and select the download:

Locate and run the Wdk setup (wdksetup.exe) from stage 2, then choose the download option rather than install.

Once completed locate and run DownloadLocation\Windows Kits\10\WDK\Installers>"Windows Driver Kit-x86_en-us.msi"

Then you will find Dependency Walker at:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Tools\x64\depends.exe for the 64 bit version
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Tools\x86\depends.exe for the 32 bit version

Which is Dependency Walker version 2.2.10011 built 2015-10-29

A handy tool is to use https://github.com/juntalis/depends-launcher which is a simple launcher for Dependency Walker that determines the platform (x86|x64|ia64) of an windows image (dll, exe, etc) and launches the appropriate version of depends.exe to view its dependencies. It's main purpose is for use in a context menu entry to easily view an image's dependencies.

Answer 3

The latest currently known version of Dependency Walker seems to be the 2.2.10011 from 2015-10-29 (links below).

It was deployed with some Windows Development Kit for Windows 10 but the version that it contained is not available anymore from the Microsoft Pages and all the newer Versions does not contain it anymore for unknown reason.

Maybe because also the latest versions have some Problems with the Dynamic-Link Library Redirection or other performance issues. (Using dependency walker under windows 10 seems to be a lot more slow and cumbersome than at previous windows versions - but still great tool for the job)

Following Versions are available:

• 2.2.10011 (2015-10-29)
  • unofficial available from this development blog - download at own risk
  • https://zzz.buzz/2017/05/18/download-dependency-walker/
• 2.2.9600 (2013-08-22)
  • available through the WDK 8.1
  • https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42273
  • after installation present in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Tools\[Arch]\depends.exe
• 2.2.6000 (2006-10-28)
  • available from official authors website
  • http://www.dependencywalker.com/

Potential replacement:

For simple tasks the Github project lucasg/Dependencies may be worth to be checked out. But it currently does not support profiling a running app to debug broken runtime dependencies as depends.exe can do.

Answer 4

I ran into the same problem and I discovered it is fixed in the latest version of Dependency Walker. I compared 2.2.6000 versus 2.2.8288 and the problem exists in the former but not the latter. However, you will probably have to wait for the Windows 8 WDK to be released to the public in order to get the latest version.