Test and Debug a driver

Question

All, Forgive me I am the beginner of the WDK development, I was reading some tutorial from msdn in here

and the read says

Typically when you test and debug a driver, the debugger and driver run on separate computers. The computer that runs the debugger is called the host computer, and the computer that runs the driver is called the target computer. The target computer is also called the test computer.

So I was wondering if the host computer and target computer can be the same one ? thanks.

Answer 1

• There is a possibility for live debugging in Windows Kernel debugger. Not all the commands of the debugger will be available (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff553382(v=vs.85).aspx).
• Another option is to use two virtual machines and redirect the serial ports of those VMs through named pipe or TCP\IP. If you are just beginning and mostly playing with Toaster sample driver - this is more than enough.

Answer 2

It is always advicable to have a host pc and test pc seperate as

when you a developing a device driver you might end up crashing the system multiple times which might lead to hard disk failure and hence if host pc is same as test pc, you would lose all your data.