Fix No .natvis Files Found Error in Windows 10

This article fixes issues related to debugging tools commands from Windows 10 kits. No .natvis files found error occurs when you run the dx command in the debugging tools for Windows which you may have installed from Windows 10 kits. Or you might have clicked DML links that are presented by other commands like for example x or dv. Upon running said commands in such a scenario, you might get an error similar as below:

Why above error occurs because the debuggers which are a part of the Windows 10 kits are missing few files (.natvis files) that help a debugger to understand how a range of data types should be visualized.

Fix No .natvis Files Found Error in Windows 10

Although .natvis files should have been included with the debugger kits and usually are slightly modified versions of files that come with Visual Studio 2013. Hence, installing a relevant edition of Visual Studio 2013 should resolve the issues of missing .natvis files for debugger from Windows 10 kits. And do ensure that you’re installing Visual Studio 2013 only, not the 2015 edition. This is because 2015 has some new features in Natvis which are yet not supported by debuggers of Windows 10 kits. So, in order to fix the issue, here’s what you need to do:

• Locate Visual Studio 2013 Natvis files from the following location:

enter the above path in Run command box and enter.

• Locate a location where the debugger of Windows 10 is installed. Usually, this location is:

• Now create a folder named “Visualizers” in every folder i.e. in x86, x64, and arm using an administrative command prompt.
• Copy all .natvis files from Visual studio installation folder and paste in every folder you made in the above step.
• Restart the kits debuggers.

Following these steps to include the visualizers from Visual Studio 2013 in the kits debuggers offers visualization support for the following elements:

• The standard template library (STL) of Visual Studio 2013 and earlier versions. These files do not support visualization of the version of the STL that’s included in Visual Studio 2015 and later versions. If you are debugging a Visual Studio 2015–built application, you can explicitly unload STL visualization support by running .nvunload stl.natvis in the debugger (or else choose not to drop that file).

• Other frameworks and libraries, including ATL and MFC.

• Many data structures for modern and universal applications. Some XAML visualizations may work only on Windows 8.1 and earlier targets. If you are debugging XAML controls in Windows 10, you can explicitly unload WinRT visualization support by running .nvunload winrt.natvis in the debugger (or else choose not to copy that file).

• Some core Win32 data structures.

Also, Microsoft shall soon release an update to Windows 10 kits which shall also have an updated version of missing Natvis files and would work with Visual Studio 2015 and would include support for Visual Studio 2015 STL versions and Windows 10 XAML visualizers.