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/// <summary>Helper function to attach a debugger to the running service.</summary>
[Conditional("DEBUG")]
static void DebugMode()
{
    if (!Debugger.IsAttached)
        Debugger.Launch();

    Debugger.Break();
}

''' <summary>Helper function to attach a debugger to the running service.</summary>
<Conditional("DEBUG")>
Shared Sub DebugMode()
    If Not Debugger.IsAttached Then
        Debugger.Launch()
    End If

    Debugger.Break()
End Sub

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Comments

• Jake - May 6th, 2012

  Wow that is so useful! I’ve been Debug.WriteLine() forever and its a pain.

• RdpGuard - May 7th, 2012

  Pretty elegant solution, thank you! :)

  We have used the following VS macros:

      Sub StartServiceAndAttach()
  
          ' build solution
          DTE.ExecuteCommand("Build.BuildSolution")
  
          ' start Service
          Dim ProcessProperties As New ProcessStartInfo
          ProcessProperties.FileName = "net.exe"
          ProcessProperties.Arguments = "start MyService"
          ProcessProperties.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Maximized
          Dim myProcess As System.Diagnostics.Process = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessProperties)
  
          ' wait when it will be started
          myProcess.WaitForExit()
  
          ' attach to the process
          Try
  
              Dim dbg2 As EnvDTE80.Debugger2 = DTE.Debugger
  
              Dim trans As EnvDTE80.Transport = dbg2.Transports.Item("Default")
  
              Dim dbgeng(1) As EnvDTE80.Engine
  
              dbgeng(0) = trans.Engines.Item("Managed")
  
              Dim proc2 As EnvDTE80.Process2 = dbg2.GetProcesses(trans, "MACHINE-NAME").Item("my-svc.exe")
  
              proc2.Attach2(dbgeng)
  
          Catch ex As System.Exception
  
              MsgBox(ex.Message)
  
          End Try
  
      End Sub
  

• Martin Page the Documentation Doctor - May 7th, 2012

  I actually followed a link over to see if you had any obvious documentation needs – bit of a waste of time, I think! This is all humblingly good stuff. I may blog about this later.

  M

• Wyatt O'Day - May 7th, 2012

  Thanks, Martin.

• mark flatt - August 27th, 2012

  you are the man, saved me hours, thank you

• Adam - November 3rd, 2013

  For anybody wanting to use this method on Windows 8, it won’t work without a registry tweak. Please check this forum post for info:

  http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/69842-Debugging-your-SOE-on-Windows-8

• Wyatt O'Day - November 3rd, 2013

  Thanks, Adam.

• Hitesh - November 7th, 2013

  Hey Wyatt… I am new to windows services. i have just created a windows service in vb.net in vs2005. now i want to debug this service and check whether its working or not. so would you please explain me the trick how to do this? and where to apply these code?

• Doug - December 2nd, 2013

  Man, I hate it when someone just posts a snippet of code and not a full fledged example.

• Wyatt O'Day - December 2nd, 2013

  Doug, that’s all the code you need. That function (DebugMode() ) and calling the function somewhere in your service.

  I’m not going to write your service for you.

  If you want an example C# or VB.NET service, then google it. There are about a billion examples already.

• Doug - December 3rd, 2013

  I didn’t ask you to write it. I just think it needs to show a more detailed example, thanks

• Jairo - March 25th, 2015

  Good and simple, thanks a lot for this Wyatt. I don’t know why the old way stopped working, I built a lot of Windows Services on .Net 2.0 and I could simply attach my code to the service process and I could debug it from there, I guess I missed that part when moving from 2.0 to 4.0.

• Wyatt O'Day - April 25th, 2018

  but it would not even compile it, and tell me that it is a service blabla,

  My guess is that fixing the error (or at least telling me what the error is) will solve your problem.