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I am trying to remote debug my application in VMware workstation 7 and Visual studio 2010 ultimate. I habe several images (win 7 ultimate,vista,etc).

I am following this tutorial: http://kristofmattei.be/2010/01/20/debugging-applications-in-virtual-machines-with-vmware-workstation-7-and-visual-studio-2008-sp1-2/

Whenever I try to start msvsmon.exe on the remote computer it will say : "The visual studio remote debugger does not support this edition of windows"

tried it with win 7 ultimate, vista premium and xp home, same situation.

Could someone help me out here?


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4 Answers

up vote 19 down vote accepted

The error message "The visual studio remote debugger does not support this edition of windows" appears because the remote debugger tries to use Windows Authentication by default, and this is only supported in the "Pro" versions of Windows, and up.

However, the remote debugger does work with the "Home" versions of Windows, you just have to tell it not to use authentication via the command line.

(Why it doesn't let you do this after launching it without any arguments, why the error message is so misleading (and contradicts the official list of supported OS), and why there is so little info about this on the web, I don't know. :))

To launch it, run this:

msvsmon.exe /noauth /nosecuritywarn

Of course, this launches it in the lowest security mode, so you'd only want to do this on a secure network. (But that's usually the mode one ends up using msvcmon in anyway, as the other mode is an even bigger PITA to set up than it is normally. Very useful tool, but really could use some streamlining.)

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it's msvsmon.exe, not msvcmon.exe –  mhenry1384 Jan 9 '12 at 4:10
saved my day... –  Odys May 30 '12 at 10:06
You saved me hours of frustration!!!! –  Jim In Texas May 24 '13 at 21:51
@LeoDavidson - hmmm... in my case it's been working all along and stopped working recently with this message now. Using Win7 Home Premium on 64bit. Have a feeling there's other reasons for this. Any thoughts? –  johntrepreneur Jan 24 at 20:24
@LeoDavidson - just figured it out. (slaps head) I was able to debug previously (without the message and your solution) because I was debugging on localhost. The minute I changed the site to www.mywidgets.com it started giving me that error because it's not being locally debugged anymore at which point you either need to upgrade to a pro version or employ your solution. –  johntrepreneur Jan 24 at 21:17
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No need to use VMWare features.

  1. Inside the guest VM run the version of msvsmon that came with your copy of visual studio 2010 (A setup package for just the remote deubgging stuff can be found on the disc/image) (use x86 if debugging a 32-bit process or x64 if debugging 64-bit one ,Itanium if you need to laugh).

  2. through the msvsmon GUI disable authentication and select allow any user to connect.

  3. disable the firewall in the VM.

  4. on the host machine you should be running visual studio 2010, under the debug dropdown select "attach to process..." and then on the window that pops up select remote from the dropdown that should say local or something initially, enter the IP address (should be private network IP i.e. 10.1.?.?) of the guest VM, alternatively use the server name displayed by the msvsmon GUI. You should get the process list for the guest and should only attach to any process that matches the version of msvsmon you ran (x86 or 64 ...or Itanium laugh).

NOTE: These are basic instructions to show you it definitely works but these instructions will only work for native code since managed requires a secure connection.

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If you are debugging a .NET app using the VMWare VS Plugin and are getting a "file not found" type of error...make sure you have the .NET runtime installed! :)

Like a moron, I set up a fresh XP VM and forgot to install the .NET runtime and wasted a good day trying to get the VMWare VS Plug-In to work!

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VSID is not supported by visual studio2010 http://communities.vmware.com/thread/282407

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