Chapter 3 Debugging Your Code
Figure 3-56. Visual Studio 2022 Remote Debugger
You are now ready to start remote debugging your application.
Start Remote Debugging
The great thing about the Remote Debugger on the remote computer is that it tells you the server name to connect to. In Figure 3-56, you can see that the server is named 20F4B56E-AB26-4:4026 where 4026 is the port assignment for Visual Studio 2022. Make a note of this server name and port number.
In your application, set a breakpoint somewhere in the code such as in a button click event handler. Now right-click the project in the Solution Explorer and click Properties. The project properties page opens as seen in Figure 3-57.
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Figure 3-57. Project properties page
Now, perform the following steps to remotely debug your application:
\1.\ Click the Debug tab, check the Use remote machine checkbox, and enter the remote machine name and port noted earlier. In our example, this is 20F4B56E-AB26-4:4026.
\2.\ Make sure that you leave the Working directory text box empty and do not check Enable native code debugging.
\3.\ When all this is done, save the properties and build your project.
\4.\ You now need to create a folder on the remote computer that
is the same path as the Debug folder on your local machine (the Visual Studio machine). For example, the path to the project Debug folder on my local machine is <source path> ShipmentLocatorApp\VisualStudioRemoteDebug\bin\Debug. Create this same path on the remote machine.
\ 5.\ Copy the executable that was just created by the build you performed in step 3 to the newly created Debug folder on the remote computer.
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Be aware that any changes to your code or rebuilds to your project will require you to repeat step 5.
\6.\ Ensure that the Remote Debugger is running on the remote computer. The description (Figure 3-56) should state that it is waiting for new connections.
\7.\ On your local machine, start debugging your application, and if prompted, enter the credentials for the remote machine to log on. Once logged on, you will see that the Remote Debugger on the remote computer displays that the remote debug session is now active (Figure 3-58). A point to note here is that if you trust the network that you are debugging across, and you are having problems logging on, you can specify that no authentication is done. In the project properties, change the Authentication mode from Windows Authentication to No Authentication (Figure 3-57). Then, on the remote machine, click the Remote Debugger and click the Tools menu, and select Options. Here, you can specify that no authentication is done and that any user can debug.
Figure 3-58. Remote debug session connected
\ 8.\ After a few seconds, you will see your application’s main window displayed on the remote machine (Figure 3-59). Yep, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
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