Force visual studio to start development server using the hostname localhost. (with period at end)

Question

Is it possible to change the hostname that the development server fires up in visual studio 2008? Ultimately I would like visual studio to start directly on http://localhost.:xxxx/ (note the period). As I am doing more ajax type calls I find that I need to inspect traffic more often using tools like fiddler to check responses/requests. (Fiddler cannot see requests over http://localhost/ as they do not traverse the regular network stack).

I looked through the web server configuration page but nothing jumped out.

I don't particularly want to go the route of configuring IIS on the box but would consider it with a compelling answer.

Answer 1

You could add code to Global.asax to redirect to localhost. if you're not coming from it already. However, make sure that such code doesn't end up in production.

Answer 2

If you have a simple setup, you might try a new option added in v2.2.4.0.

Inside the registry, under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Fiddler, add a new Reg_SZ named HookWithPac with the value set to True. You should find that Fiddler now registers as the system proxy using a simple PAC script rather than manually specifying 127.0.0.1:8888. This, in turn, causes IE to send LocalHost traffic to Fiddler.

Please let me know if this works out for you!

Answer 3

You could also just hit http://localhost.:2147 which will cause fiddler to trap traffic to localhost.