views:

461

answers:

4

On my Windows XP machine Visual Studio 2003 2005 and 2008 all complain that I cannot start debugging my web application because I must either be a member of the Debug Users group or of the Administrators group. So, I am an Administrator and I added Debug Users just in case, and it still complains.

Short of reformatting my machine and starting over, has anyone encountered this and fixed it [with some undocumented command]?

Thanks for your suggestions and questions.

A: 

You could try running "VsJITDebugger.exe -p <PID>" on the command line. I've had a simalar situation and been able to debug the application using the above.

"VsJITDebugger.exe /?" will show you all the options.

The PID can be found either in the task manager (view->Select Columns...) or Visual Studio's Attach to Process.

McN
+1  A: 

We encountered an issue like this and found that it was a group policy issue. There's a group policy setting for debugging that needs to be enabled. It overrides the fact that you are in the right group.

Daniel O
+1  A: 

Which users and/or groups are in your "Debug programs" right (under User Rights Assignment)? Maybe that setting got overridden by group policy (Daniel's answer), or just got out of whack for some reason. It should, obviously, include the "Debug Users" group.

Chris Jester-Young
A: 

Awesome, I'd never really known about the "Administrative Tools -> Local Security Settings -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment" under XP. My "Debug programs" policy is set to "Administrators" only, yet trying to debug now just worked and this is several days after installing the .NET framework 3.5, so maybe that installation fixed things in the background.

dlamblin