Is there a way to set up Remote Debugging (Msvscom.exe) on a machine that does not have Visual Studio installed?
I would like to attach to the service running on the VM so I can debug an issue in the code. I've done this before but both machines have had VS installed.
The Dev box is running Visual Studio 2010/Windows 7. The VM is running Windows 7 without Visual Studio.
I'm going to resurrect this because anyone who's tried to do this knows it's a complete pain in the ass every time, and that it changes slightly with every possible combination of host/remote system you can have.
Visual Studio Remote Tools Links:
Visual Studio 2010 remote debugger. (Working as of 21/Oct/2016)
Visual Studio 2013 remote tools (working as of 21/Oct/2016)
Visual Studio 2015 remote tools x86 - Direct download link
Visual Studio 2015 remote tools x64 - Direct download link
Visual Studio Tools (Thanks Robo Burned)
Visual Studio 2017 Remote Tools x64 - Direct download link (Thanks Isaac Baker)
Visual Studio 2017 Remote Tools x86 - Direct download link (Thanks Isaac Baker)
Visual Studio 2019 Remote Tools - download link
This is the setup I succeeded with today:
Host (Dev) Machine:
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64. Running Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.
Remote Machine:
Industrial/Factory Floor PC running Windows Embedded Standard 32-bit. It looks/feels exactly like Windows 7. Running SP1. Visual Studio is not installed. Has the .NET framework 4.
Network:
Both machines are on the same subnet. I access the remote machine via RDP and run my application that way.
Microsoft-Proprietary Follicle-Deterioration Implementation:
Make note of your dev machine's user name and password. For some reason you have to create exactly the same user name and password on the remote machine. Because Microsoft.
How I did it:
I downloaded the Visual Studio 2010 remote debugger from the link provided by #sJhonny. I had to switch off of Visual Studio 2013 in that article and over to 2010. If you care to go over the 2010 article with a fine-tooth comb to find the download, the link is right next to the "No one ever finds this helpful" link at the top. If not, just follow my link above.
Install that on the remote machine and run the configuration wizard. I left the defaults for the wizard:
"Run the 'Visual Studio ....." was checked off
Username is LocalSystem and password is blank
Allow only computers on the local network....
Run the Remote Debugger on the remote system and you'll see
Msvsmon started a new server named 'username#machinename...'
in the interface. So far so good. Run the application on the remote machine. On the dev machine, Ctrl+Alt+P in visual studio will open "Attach to Process" (It's also under the tools menu). I got a popup about my dev machine's firewall not being configured properly and was asked if I wanted to allow the connections etc... Say yes obviously.
Enter the 'username#machinename' combination into the qualifier box... press Refresh and pray a little. Pray a little more a lot harder and you should see a list of the processes running on the remote machine. Select your process and attach to it.
But my breakpoints don't work!? Of course they don't... because using the breakpoints in the same directory as the application on the remote machine would make too much sense. If you were lucky enough, you got warned about a breakpoint cache and got shown a dialog with a path.
The dialog mentions something about it being correct relative to the remote machine. It's lying. It has nothing to do with the remote machine except that it forced you to create a brand new user over there with the same name as your current user because Microsoft. To get your breakpoints to work, follow the path on your dev machine (customizable in Tools>Options>Debugging>Symbols: Cache symbols in this directory) and copy your application's .pdb files over to that directory. You have to copy them over with every new build, unless there's an option to do it automatically; I haven't checked because I have yet to stop celebrating my remote debugging success.
Everything should work now.
certainly there is.
You can install msvsmon without installing visual studio.
I've done this myself on several machines.
the tricky part lays in authorization- the user running VS on your local machine needs special priviliges on the remote machine.
ms has some articles explaining the details- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t.aspx,
Update:
Here's the links for 2017 which are not obvious to find either.
Visual Studio Remote Tools Links x64 direct link
Visual Studio Remote Tools Links x86 direct link
Taken from:
how-to-implement-remote-debugging-in-visual-studio-2005
Let's consider an example to understand this situation clearly. Molly
Clark and Adam Barr are both employees at Adventure Works. Adventure
Works has a Microsoft Windows NT domain named adventure-works.com.
Adam is having trouble with some software that Molly wrote. Molly
would like to debug this software on Adam's computer. Molly and Adam
follow these steps:
Adam doesn't have the remote debugger on his computer. To set up the remote debugger, Molly decides to share out the Program
Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger directory
on her computer. She creates a file share called Remote.
Adam runs \MollyComputerName\Remote\x86\Msvsmon.exe.
After the remote debugger starts, Adam clicks Permissions on the Tools menu to configure the remote debugger by using the Permissions
dialog box. He gives Molly permission to debug.
Note Adam could also configure the remote debugger by passing the /allow option when the remote debugger starts.
Molly starts Visual Studio 2005.
To open the Attach to Process dialog box, Molly clicks Attach to Process on the Tools menu.
Molly connects to Adam's computer by entering adventure-works.com\Adam#AdamComputerName in the Qualifier box.
Under Available Processes, Molly selects the worker process that her application is using and then clicks Attach.
Molly opens a browser and provides the URL to the remote application. The execution stops where the breakpoint is placed in
the application.
There's also another way which I prefer (if you have fast internet connection).
You don't have to download or install anything on remote desktop connection.
You can share your disk C: while connecting via Remote Desktop Connection.
On the remote desktop go to location (depending on your local location)
\\tsclient\C\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64
(optional) Create shortcut to folder or msvsmon.exe on desktop
Run it remotely from your local disk via shared disk. (start can take few seconds depending on your connection quality)
Option2: Copy Remote Debugger\x64 or x86 folder to the remote location and use it.
I was able to get it working with asp.net core 2.1, the only difference from the answers above was that the process you attach to is dotnet.exe.
Related
I have developed a windows service on my system and have deployed the service on a target machine which does not have visual studio. Therefore, I need to debug the application from my PC. I already know how to debug a windows service on a local machine.
MY STEPS:
Copied the complete bin folder (containing .exe as well as .pdb files) to the target machine.
Installed the service on the target machine using InstallUtil.exe (i.e installUtil.exe "pathToMyServiceEXE/myService.Exe")
Started the service
Installed Visual Studio Remote Debugging application (started in "No Authentication mode" with Debugging option checked)
Attached to the service in Visual Studio (which is running on my PC)
PROBLEM: I am able to successfully attached to the windows service of the target machine. But it cannot find the symbols.
I have checked other SO questions about the same problem but could not find the correct solution so far. I have tried the following things to solve the problem:
Opened Tools->Options->Debugging->Symbols and then put the path of .pdb files on my local PC. (Didn't work)
Opened Tools->Options->Debugging->General and unchecked "Enable just my code".
In addition to above two, I have already made sure that I am running the x64 version of the Remote debugging tool, Debug/x64 version of windows service and debug/x64 on my local PC.
The best advice that I can give you - which is not the easiest now, but will pay off in the long run - is to use WinDBG debugger on the target machine. This is next to zero setup on the target machine but will require you to learn the basics of WinDBG. This is not trivial but will pay off in the long run.
Regarding why you cannot load symbols:
Maybe PDBs do not match binaries?
Maybe path is not accesible to the current logged-in user? (such as mapped drive, etc)
Maybe permission issue?
Other then that I think it should work
I'm trying to deploy and debug a UWP app onto a physical device. The Device is an Acer Iconia W1-810 Tab 8 running Windows 10 Home. The development environment is also Windows 10 running VS2015 Community. The Acer is set to Developer mode and the screen is unlocked.
According to my reading of this article I should be able to connect the device via USB and deploy and debug directly on the device. At first I couldn't get the PC to see the device as Windows Phone IP over USB Transport (IpOverUsbSvc) was disabled. Enabling that means I can now see the table on the network under the Phones category.
The project in VS is also set to Uninstall and then re-install my package ...
Selecting Device as the debug target in VS yields this error:
DEP6200 : Bootstrapping failed. Device cannot be found. 0x89731810:
Deployment failed because no Windows Phone was detected. Make sure a
phone is connected and powered on.
Selecting Remote Machine as the target device yeilds:
Error: Unable to connect to the Microsoft Visual Studio Remote
Debugger named '192.168.0.7'. The Visual Studio 2015 Remote Debugger
(MSVSMON.EXE) does not appear to be running on the remote computer.
This may be because a firewall is preventing communication to the
remote computer. Please see Help for assistance on configuring remote
debugging.
Which is understandable as I don't have this installed at the moment. But from my understanding the first scenario should be working and I'd rather not install a debugger on device unless absolutely required.
What do I need to configure in order to get the first debug scenario working?
It sounds like you might not have installed the visual studio remote tools on your target machine. You need to do that first before you can do any remote debugging.
Here are the instructions:
Download the Visual Studio Remote Tools from one of the links provided at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y7f5zaaa.aspx
Install the remote tools on the target machine
Start the remote debugger on the target machine
From visual studio click on small lack the arrow to the right of the debug button, and make sure "Remote Machine" is selected
When prompted, enter the IP of the device that you want to debug at.
(It sounds like you already know steps 4 and 5, but I included them for completeness)
I´m using Anonymous Pipes for my C# applications for a server(WPF project, main application) without admin rights and a client(command line tool just for executing some tasks for the server that need admin rights) with admin rights.
The Anonymous Pipes part is based on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb546102.aspx
It works fine but my problem is that I can´t seem to debug the client.
The server is the starting project and debugging works fine there. But if I want to debug the client, the pipes have to be provided at startup and handed to the command line
using (PipeStream pipeClient =
new AnonymousPipeClientStream(PipeDirection.In, args[0]))
So how do I debug the client? I have to start the Process over the server process, but how do I get visual studio to hold on breakpoints in the client code then? (Both projects are already in the same Visual studio solution)
As you've already mentioned in the comments, you can't attach the debugger to another process in VS 2010 Express.
This limitation is removed in VS Express 2013 for Windows Desktop, which can be downloaded here. Upgrade and you'll have access to the "Attach to Process..." menu item under DEBUG.
I am working with visual studio 2013 in c#. My application contains three project in the same folder: client side, database side and web service side.
When I run the application from within visual studio, it runs very well and all the features of the application are functioning. When I run the exe file located in the bin/debug folder, it runs only when VS is open. If VS is closed it runs only the client side and a message is shown
impossible to connect to the server.
How can I solve this?
When VS is open, it runs the server/web service, and your client. Running it from the commandline will require starting your server and web service side manually, and then starting the client.
If you don't have IIS manager installed you can launch IIS directly from iisexpress.exe.
It should be in C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe, so just go ahead and run it.
Then you should be able to run your application.
To start IIS from the IIS manager go to Run (press Windows+R), and type in inetmgr.
This will open IIS manager, from there you can start it (forgive me for not being too specific, I don't have it currently installed. I believe you have a Start button at the side-panel. I hope someone in the comments could chime in or just edit this answer. If not I will install & update later).
After it is on you should be then able to run your executable successfully.
If your command-line can't find inetmgr, see my other answer here.
However if you do want to have the IIS manager you can install it + other IIS features easily:
Go to Computer → Uninstall or change a program.
At the side click on "Turn WIndows features on or off".
Inside "Internet Information Services" have your pick of whatever you want.
When you run in Visual Studio 2013, by default it uses its IIS Express as a webserver. You can set it to use IIS instead. (If you don't already have IIS installed, you'll need to install it using add/remove Windows components etc--google for more info on that if needed. Make sure you drill down to include ASP.NET under the IIS bits and pieces.)
To use IIS instead of the Visual Studio development webserver, right-click the project in Solution Explorer, and click the Web tab:
Select External Host in the dropdown, and enter a URL such as http://localhost/WebApp1. This is the virtual name by which IIS will access the files in your project folder. Earlier versions of Visual Studio included a button to create the virtual directory, but in 2013 you must create it yourself by running IIS Manager:
Enter the same virtual name you use in the project settings, and the physical path of your project:
Finally, right-click the newly created virtual directory and choose Convert to Application.
The website/webservice will now run under IIS, so will be available independently of Visual Studio.
Please excuse my ignorance, I am mainly a Java developer and a bit unfamiliar with Visual Studio and the details of some of the debugging process.
I am creating an application (WPF and Console) in C# that is being developed on my workstation but I need to run/debug the application on another remote machine. Is there a way that I can just hit "Debug" from Visual Studio 2010 and have it emulate a run from the target machine? I need to do this because of local file directory access on the remote machine.
I have looked into remote debugging, but I think I am on the wrong track, as remote debugging just seems to use another machine to run the debugger, not the process itself.
Any information is greatly appreciated!
You will simply attach to process of the running application, for detailed explanation you should take a look at article
Remote Debugging with Visual Studio 2010
you cannot, but you can remote debug and attach to the app running on the remote machine, you will need the remote debugging tools installed on the remote machine
running (F5) on a remote machine, directly from within VS is possible in Dev11, however