Windows User Mode Debugger Transport for Visual Studio 2012

Question

I read a post about Visual Studio 2012 being able to support Windbg commands in the immediate window. This requires that one chooses the "Windows User Mode Debugger" option while choosing the Transport under "Attach to Process" option.

While this seems to work for the local host qualifier, I am interested in knowing if i can debug a remote target process using this method just like we do by selecting the remote transport.

I am using Visual Studio 2012 Premium.

I tried giving the IP of the machine in the qualifier section with the "Windows User Mode Debugger" transport selected but i got the "Could not connect to the machine" message.

I also tried the steps mentioned in this link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh439381(v=vs.85).aspx

but it did not work.

Also , i'm not sure if this article is meant for a different version of Visual Studio since the button that i see next to the Qualifier field is named "Find..." rather than "Browse" as the article mentions.

Can someone please help me with the right steps here?

Labiodental

While I do not have an answer to this question I can tell you what I am doing: If I want to debug a particular condition in both Visual-Studio and WinDBG I will create a dump file and debug it in each environment alone. Running WinDBG commands in Visual-Studio command window did not work for me... – Artistry

Answer 1

Have you run dbgsrv.exe in the remote target machine.

Step#1:
Install Windows SDK in the remote target machine

Step#2:
Run command:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Debuggers\x86
dbgsrv.exe -t tcp:port=12346

Step#3:
As you said, refer to:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh439381(v=vs.85).aspx

Amplification

Answer 2

This doesn't seem to be documented and I struggled with this myself a year or so back, but the WinDbg integration is Visual Studio is for what's called the smart client way of debugging. You need to run dbgsrv.exe on the server and then you'll be able to connect.

See more information about dbgsrv.exe etc. here: Process Servers (User Mode) and especially here: Activating a Process Server.

I wasted hours on this.

Lately