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User-mode drivers can be debugged with a single computer and either the free or checked build of the operating system. Debugging a kernel-mode driver, however, requires two machines, a target computer and a host computer. The target computer runs the driver or another kernel-mode application. The host computer runs the debugger.
The NT-based operating systems are available in two versions: the free build and the checked build. The checked build has many additional features that make it very useful to run on a computer being debugged. For full details, see Using the Checked Build of Windows.
Kernel debugging does not require specific combinations of the free or checked builds. You can debug a free build product from a free or checked system or debug a checked build product from a free or checked system. However, it is often better to debug a driver on a checked build to look for bugs, and to test it on a free build to check its performance.
The following figure shows the typical setup for debugging a kernel-mode driver. Windows 2000 will only support a null modem connection, but Windows XP and later will also support a 1394 connection.
Typical NT-Based Debugging Setup
For full details on hardware and software requirements for debugging, consult the documentation in the Debugging Tools for Windows package. See Debugging Tools for NT-Based Operating Systems for details.
All drivers that will run on the NT-based operating system should be debugged and tested on both single-processor and multiprocessor computers. In addition, it's a good idea to test on the various operating system product suites, such as Personal, Professional, Server, and Advanced Server.