From: "Gregg N" 

Frank Haber wrote:
> MS Support recently kindly sent me a hotfix for post-SP2 machines that
> modifies imapi so that certain CD and DVD burners are now recognized
> by software as a burner, rather than just an optical reader.  The
> hotfix did its magic and worked, backing up the SP2 files.
>
> But I also got a second SFXarchive....
>
> WindowsXP-KB883523-x86-Symbols-enu.exe
>
> Which, when run, just built a subtree in the download directory like
> this. What's going on?  A bot bothered me for a week after my

Symbol files are used to allow symbolic debugging. When you are debugging
your application, and you look at a stack trace, symbol files allow you to
see actual names for the Windows stuff at the bottom of the stack.
Otherwise, all you would see are hex addresses. When a system file is
updated, the addresses move around, so an updated symbol file is required.
You don't need it if you are not running a debugger on the machine.

Gregg

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