Visual Studio Bring Background cmd.exe to Foreground

Question

Is it possible to rise a cmd.exe processes from the silent background mode to the visible foreground so I can LOOK at them?

Problem Background: I'm using VS2008 working with a very large solution containing C#, C++, and Fortran. Occasionally (a few times a day) when building my project the build hangs and does not allow me to do anything in VS (resulting in the need to kill the process). I have checked the output box, and there appears to be nothing helpful there.

Possible Cause: I am thinking that maybe one of the cmd.exe windows that are spawned in the background may be waiting for some form of input, but to investigate I need to see those windows.

Search for Other Causes/Solutions: If not this, is there a way to try to check and see if there is something else going on? Is this a problem anyone else is having. (Note: killing VS and reloading often fixes the problem first try, and the build process takes less than 15 seconds.)

Answer 1

If stopping and restart fixes the problem, I guess it's not an input problem.

For example when my build project halts, it's always the VB6 project or SVN that are upset. (strangely the VS projects always work fine).

Once one of these halt, they halt until they are fixed. Thus for the VB projects run and work-out what the model dialogue is saying and fix it. or on SVN it usually need a clean-up run on the directory.

The intermittent nature suggests some sort of timing issue, like a file been lock open etc.

You could attach another copy of visual studio to the cmd.exe and see where it's at. Not sure if you can get symbols for it, so it might be fun to diagnose.