Assembly & Symbol of exe file from visual studio were gone after build for debug purposes - c++

Question

I am learning about reverse engineering on windows. I was following Reverse Engineering and Function Calling by Address. I did not download those source demo. I just write down a little c++ console and debug it my self with Ollydbg or xdbg64. Just for to know how windows' stack work.
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void __cdecl mySecretFunction(int * param1, const char *param2,
DWORD param3, BYTE param4) {
// Do somethng
}
int main() {
// Do somethng and call mySmySecretFunction()
}
I have enable /DEBUG and choose Debug on Configuration on App properties page.
I ran App.exe and it works well. I debug with Ollydbg, it can run normally, but both disassembly and symbol of the exe are gone or missing. So I cant debug it.
So what I must to do/configurate in visual studio 2017 so I can debug my simple c++ console with external debugger like Ollydbg or x64dbg ?

Answer 1

The following steps worked for me with Visual Studio 2017:
Create an empty C++ project.
Add the source code you provided.
Go to your project properties, select Debugging.
Change Command to c:\x64dbg\release\x96dbg.exe (notice the 96), this starts x32dbg.exe or x64dbg.exe depending on your executable architecture.
Change Command Arguments to "$(ProjectPath)" arg1 arg2 where $(ProjectPath) is the previous contents of Command and arg1 arg2 is the previous content of Command Arguments.
Debug the executable by launching the program without debugging (Ctrl+F5). If you launch the debugger like usual you will be debugging x64dbg itself, which is probably not what you want.
There is no real integration with x64dbg and Visual Studio, this simply starts x64dbg with the right arguments to debug your application from Visual Studio and you would be much better served by loading the application in x64dbg once and then manually loading it for low-level debugging.

Answer 2

don't enable debug mode if you want to debug in olly-DBG. debug mode is for debugging in visual studio. in this mode you can see variables name and run program line by line. the line and varietals name have no meaning in olly-DBG. it is better that don't compile in debug mode.
you can't see your code beacuase you don't pause your program at winmain.
Go to option > Debugging option > Events and select Make first pause at:>WinMain (if location is known)
hope it help you.

Answer 3

I know this question is old. Anyways this's my own answer to your question.
Using the visual studio, you can integrate your debugger x64dbg to your project or current project like this.
You need to locate the part to your x64dbg program, either x64 or x86 version depending on the bit of the application you want to debug or build etc.
Provide an argument for this current project of yours. In this case, either by the full part to the executable of your project or better still in a more portable fashion, use the Microsoft macros as shown in the picture below.
And although you can provide the target initial directory for the program, but is optional. Then whenever you want to debug your application, all you need to do is just click the button and the debugger will start with the application.