Remote debugging - Getting errors

Question

I have an XP client that is experiencing an issue. My dev box is Vista Home 64. I start up the debugger on the client machine and when i try to run on the dev box, it says 'Unable to debug. Remote debugger doesn't support this version of windows'.

Looks like I'm sol. is there another way to find out how to debug this? The application is throwing a .net runtime error eventid 5000 with a system.security error. Not sure why the try catch isn't getting it. Is there some way to find out what's going on?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You may be running into issues with the 64-bit debugger not being able to deal with the 32-bit debugger client.

There was a question a while ago talking about problems connecting a 32-bit debugger to a 64-bit target (which I think is the opposite from your situation):

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/76939/x86-remote-debugger-service-on-x64

Even though there's no resolution there, it might give you some ideas - maybe it's as simple as making sure you're running the 32-bit version of the debugger on the x64 machine (if that can be done simply)..

Answer 2

Are you running the remote debugging monitor (msvcmon.exe) on the remote machine?

Does the version of the monitor match the Visual Studio version you are using on the local machine?

Answer 3

Yes, msvcmon came from the same disk and it's running. I'm running vs2k8 which is the 32 bit version (is there a 64 bit version?)

Do I have to run a debugger? I thought vs2k8 was the debugger and the client running the app sends back it's status?

Answer 4

If you're going to target 32-bit XP, then I'd recommend having at least a virtual machine of XP built so you can test your application on the OS.

You should be able to open the solution from within XP and step through it there.

Have you got any stace-trace or further information about your system.security error? Perhaps by compiling a debug version, rather than a release, you'll get more of an idea of what is causing it. (Sorry if that is teaching you how to suck eggs.)

Answer 5

Turns out the .net framework was hosed on the client. I couldn't get a stacktrace or nothing. Removed and reinstalled .net framework and everything worked great!

Thanks for all the help!