Quicker way to attach to the worker process in VS

Question

I'm using VS 2010. And in VS 2010 it's even more painful now to attach to the worker process when you want to test your local IIS site via IIS, not the VS built-in web server.

It's more painful because now when you select the worker process () via the Debug Menu | Attach to Process | w3wp.exe it brings up an additional prompt asking if you're sure you want to do this.

Even before this, attaching to the process in previous versions of VS was just outright painful. I must do this 200 times a day which wastes a lot of my time when it takes 5-10 seconds to click through and do this.

Now if you've got 2 different worker processes going, then I can see a need to choose. But before that, just getting to that attach screen is simply painful.

Anyone know a shortcut or just a quicker way other than the attach to process dialog in order to attach to the worker process in VS?

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't add a nice toolbar icon or something that jumps you right to that Attach to Dialog screen and even better you could be able to specify only to show worker processes as an option which would save me a hell of a log of time sifting through that list even though it's already alphabetized. I still have to scroll to get to it.

Anyway, it's becoming a huge annoyance now..I'm really tired of the long way to get the attachment going to that process every single time.

Answer 1

Hm, not a great leap over and above what you are doing, but it may ease your workflow. have you taken a look at command customization?

1. Click Tools -> Customize ... (or Right-click tool bar and select Customize ...)
2. From Customize dialog, click Commands
3. Select your target, (I suggest Context menu)
4. Select your sub target (if Context menu, select Editor Context Menus | Code Window)
5. Click Add Command
6. From Add Command dialog, select Debug category
7. Select Attach to Process... from command list (near top)
8. Click OK
9. Click Close
10. Use your new shortcut!

Hope this helps! :)

ps: if you added Attach to Process... command to Code Window context menu, you should be able to launch the Attach to Process dialog from right clicking anywhere in a code window.