For a few weeks I have been developing only in release mode. I recently switched back to debug mode and found my previously working code failed. I have narrowed down the issue but have found it is not only present in the code I was working on, but all code (test code, old projects, sample code etc) on my machine.

The problem is that when D3D10CreateDeviceAndSwapChain is called in debug mode I get an E_FAIL error code (see error box attached). I.e. the code below (taken from a Frank Luna sample) fails:

    HR( D3D10CreateDeviceAndSwapChain(
            0,                 //default adapter
            md3dDriverType,
            0,                 // no software device
            D3D10_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG,
            D3D10_SDK_VERSION,
            &sd,
            &mSwapChain,
            &md3dDevice) );
 

However if I change the 4th argument to 0 everything works.

I can only think that either my graphics card is broken or the Direct X SDK or Direct X runtime is somehow corrupt. Has anyone got any suggestions as to what should be my next steps?

Ben.

Yup - thats it.
KB 2670838 has stopped debug mode working. The link you pasted above leads on to a more detailed debate, but my solution was to uninstall this update and now everything works fine.

Going to switch off automatic updates from now on.

Thanks,

Ben.