Need help with windows debug tools - HPET problems on win2k864

[Beth Kon <eak@us.ibm.com>]

I ran into trouble trying to get the hpet working with win2k864. It
hangs very early on (black screen with "Windows is loading Files" at the
bottom). My guess is there are problems with our acpi/bios changes,
since they introduce some ACPI 2.0 structures and QEMU/KVM supports ACPI
1.0. We may not have enough 2.0 infrastructure to get it working right
for 64 bit. Win2k832 does work with the hpet, but 64 doesn't.

So! I need to figure out how to debug Windows and Anthony suggested that
there may be some people with experience here. 

I have set up a host and a target guest on kvm, one started with -serial
pty and the other with -serial /dev/pts/0 (which was the value spit out
by the first guest). I'm trying to test the serial connection by
following instructions at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc266323.aspx

which just sends a message over the serial connection from one guest to
the other. I specify the baud rate as shown , assuming it shouldn't
matter in this emulated environment, but I can't get the message to show
up. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is this the proper way to set up a
"null modem cable" between 2 guests?

Also, reading the windows docs, I see that there are several debuggers,
like kd, cdb, ntsd, and windbg (gui wrapper). I downloaded the debugging
package from:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx#a

which claims to download all tools, but I can't figure out how to invoke
kd directly. It appears not to be there. I can invoke WinDbg from the
Start menu, however, and I assume that will be sufficient for my needs.

Lastly, I still haven't figured out if these debuggers require setup on
both host and target. If so, they will be useless for my needs since I
get a hang before the OS boots. But there must be some way to debug boot
issues. 

If anyone has any comments/suggestions on any of the above, I'd be very
appreciative!

-- 
Elizabeth Kon (Beth)
IBM Linux Technology Center
Open Hypervisor Team
email: eak@us.ibm.com