Windows User Mode Debugging Mode for Visual Studio 2012

Question

I read a post that Visual Studio 2012 can support Windbg commands in a direct window. To do this, select the "Windows User Mode Debugger" option when selecting a transport in the "Attach to Process" section.

Although this seems to work for the local host classifier, I am interested in knowing if I can debug the remote target process using this method, just like us, by choosing the remote transport.

I am using Visual Studio 2012 Premium.

I tried to specify the IP address of the machine in the qualifier section with the selected transport "Windows User Mode Debugger", but I received the message "Could not connect to the machine."

I also tried the steps mentioned in this link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh439381(v=vs.85).aspx

but it didn’t work.

Also, I'm not sure if this article is for a different version of Visual Studio, because the button that I see next to the Qualifier field is called Find ... and not Browse, as mentioned in the article ..

Can someone please help me with the right steps here?

Answer 1

Did you run dbgsrv.exe on the remote target computer.

Step 1:
Install the Windows SDK on the remote target machine.

Step 2:
Launch command:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Debuggers\x86 dbgsrv.exe -t tcp:port=12346 

Step 3:
As you said, refer to:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh439381(v=vs.85).aspx

Answer 2

This does not seem to be documented, and I struggled with it myself about a year ago, but integration with WinDbg is Visual Studio for what is called the smart client method for debugging. You need to run dbgsrv.exe on the server, and then you can connect.

More details about dbgsrv.exe etc. here: Process servers (user mode) and especially here: Process Server activation .

I spent several hours on this.