Visual Studio Hacks

Debug a Running Process #41

Chapter 5, Debugging

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163

HACK

In Windows Server 2003, you can have multiple application

pools; each of these application pools has its own worker

process or worker processes. All of these processes will be

named w3wp.exe. This makes attaching to the right process

somewhat difficult. Once you have identified the correct pro-

cess based on trial and error, you can recognize it based on

its ID.

Connecting to ASP.NET in this way gives you several advantages. You can

start debugging without reinitializing the application and thus losing any in-

process session or cache information. It’s also faster—by attaching to the

process, you don’t have to wait for the browser to start or navigate back to

where you were in the application. When a bug is discovered, you can sim-

ply attach to the process, place your breakpoints, and refresh the browser

window to start the debugging session.

Special Considerations for Services

If you find yourself writing Windows services the only way to debug your

service is by attaching. Simply ensure that the Show System Processes check-

box is checked, and attach to your service.

However, you will find it to be practically impossible to debug the Start

event of the service. The only way to really debug this event is to put a call

to

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000) in the beginning of the Start event

to give you time to attach the debugger. This should ...