diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 5a087d2770..680af55ce2 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -605,6 +605,8 @@ Release 2.6.0 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-6831. Inconsistency between 'hdfs dfsadmin' and 'hdfs dfsadmin -help'.
     (Xiaoyu Yao via Arpit Agarwal)
 
+    HDFS-6979. hdfs.dll not produce .pdb files. (cnauroth)
+
     BREAKDOWN OF HDFS-6134 AND HADOOP-10150 SUBTASKS AND RELATED JIRAS
   
       HDFS-6387. HDFS CLI admin tool for creating & deleting an
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/pom.xml b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/pom.xml
index 2c4ddf6437..ecdd1aeac4 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/pom.xml
@@ -415,11 +415,11 @@ http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
                     </exec>
                     <exec executable="msbuild" dir="${project.build.directory}/native"
                         failonerror="true">
-                      <arg line="ALL_BUILD.vcxproj /nologo /p:Configuration=Release"/>
+                      <arg line="ALL_BUILD.vcxproj /nologo /p:Configuration=RelWithDebInfo /p:LinkIncremental=false"/>
                     </exec>
                     <!-- Copy for inclusion in distribution. -->
                     <copy todir="${project.build.directory}/bin">
-                      <fileset dir="${project.build.directory}/native/target/bin/Release"/>
+                      <fileset dir="${project.build.directory}/native/target/bin/RelWithDebInfo"/>
                     </copy>
                   </target>
                 </configuration>
@@ -437,7 +437,7 @@ http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
                       <attribute name="test"/>
                       <sequential>
                         <echo message="Running @{test}"/>
-                        <exec executable="${project.build.directory}/native/Release/@{test}" failonerror="true" dir="${project.build.directory}/native/">
+                        <exec executable="${project.build.directory}/native/RelWithDebInfo/@{test}" failonerror="true" dir="${project.build.directory}/native/">
                           <env key="CLASSPATH" value="${test_classpath}:${compile_classpath}"/>
                           <!-- HADOOP_HOME required to find winutils. -->
                           <env key="HADOOP_HOME" value="${hadoop.common.build.dir}"/>