Develop Reference

IIS 8 - Launch exe on server via ASP.NET

I'm trying to create a webapplication for my local network.
I've installed IIS 8 on a PC and I'm hosting an ASP.NET C# application on it.
Now I would like to launch an exe-file on the server, when the user clicks a button in the asp.net application.
I've created a new application pool for the webapplication.
Now I'm launching the exe with the following code:
Process process = new Process();
process.StartInfo.FileName = #"C:\Windows\notepad.exe";
process.Start();
If I check the task manager, I can see that the exe is running in the background.
Unfortunately, it doesn't show up on the desktop.
Obviously, there is a problem with permissions for the IIS service.
Can you help me with the configuration of the permissions?
Thank you,
Sandro

This is no longer possible in Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 or later. To help prevent what are called 'shatter' attacks - where an attacking program sends a message to a privileged service's window, that exploits a vulnerability in that message handler - the 'interactive' session is isolated from real desktops. Microsoft call this Session 0 Isolation. There are some application compatibility measures for legacy services.
On Windows Server 2003 and earlier, it will only work if the user is either logged on at the physical console, or using a special switch to Remote Desktop to tell it to connect you to an administrative session. For Remote Desktop 6.0 or before (before XP SP3 or Vista SP1) you use the /console switch. For Remote Desktop 6.1 or later (included in XP SP3 and Vista SP1), use /admin. Other remote access utilities project the physical console session.

Unable to Start Debugging on the WebServer

While creating the website I choose Location as HTTP and then provided http://172.24.17.188/myProject and it created the project happily.
And I was able to run the project too. But once I have closes the VS2008 and reopened the project , I am getting the following error while trying to run the website.
Edit:
I am able to browse the website by manually typing in browser but unable to run or debug usinh VS2008.

If the website is running on IIS on the same machine then you can attach the debugger to the IIS process. You do this by click on "Debug" then "Attach to process...". Sort the processes in descending order and find the process named "w3wp.exe". Then click the "Attach" button. If you don't see the process then view the site in a browser to allow IIS to start the process.
If the website is running on a different server then you can do the same but you need to run the remote debugging tool (MSVSMON). This means you will need to have Visual Studio installed on the webserver. Run MSVSMON and be sure the firewall doesn't block the connection. Now you click "Debug" then "Attach to process...". Enter the server name that was displaed on MSMON's debug window in the qualifier textbox. If everything is setup properly you will see the remote servers process list. Then you can connect to the "w3wp.exe" process.
These are two ways to debug web applications using Visual Studios and IIS.

Do the following changes in your IIS settings
Make sure that IIS is configured to use Integrated Windows Authentication
Make sure that HTTP Keep Alives are enabled.

Visual Studio 2010 is not allowing me to debug my code

So, this interesting issue has been plaguing me for the past couple of hours. Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate no longer attaches the debugger and lets me debug my code.
If I use the built in development server, then everything works fine. If I switch to Use Local IIS Web Server (http://localhost/), then all it does it attach to w3wp.exe, but no DLLs or PDBs are loaded for anything. I can go to Debug > Windows > Modules, and literally nothing is loaded in this window. Conversely, when using the built in development server, the Modules window displays all the DLLs and shows that the symbols for my DLLs have been loaded. Something is obviously amiss. The VS installation is completely bone stock.
In IIS, my website is configured with ASP.NET 2.0 (because no 3.5 exists to select from the drop down), along with read / log visits / index this resource options checked on the "Home Directory" tab.
Some of my failed ideas:
1) If I attach to process on the iexplore.exe instance where the website is displayed, it loads Internet Explorer's DLLs, but not mine.
2) I've restarted the computer multiple times
3) I've invoked devenv.exe /resetuserdata once
4) I've confirmed that every project is indeed set to debug and not release.
5) Deleted all \bin contents and rebuilt the solution.
6) Deleted entire solution and repulled from Source Control.
Can someone tell me what is wrong with this thing? I'm going to have an aneurism from the headache this is causing me.

You need to attach it to the IIS worker process, which OS are you using? Make sure you attach with the Managed + Native flags, in the Attach to Process. What happens if you just run (F5) your web application inside Visual Studio (that automatically attaches a debugger)? Do you get any errors?

Well there are quite a few good answers here, but I have found that the root cause of the issue for me was application pool authentication configuration. Let me lay out the scenario that I experienced and the solution and perhaps it will help someone save time....and hair.
Scenario:
I want to debug an ASP.NET web application in Visual Studio 2010 but cannot use the built-in Visual Studio web server. The reason that I could not use the built-in web server is that my application referenced assemblies built specifically for a 64-bit architecture and the VS web server would not support these. So, I had to use the option "Use Custom Web Server" in the website properties to point the debugger at a published instance of my site on a remote IIS web server.
Issue:
Even with the web.config debug options set correctly to publish debug symbols in the assembly output (i.e. compilation debug="true"), the debugger would not attach to the remote IIS process and I did not hit any breakpoints
Environment:
The Visual Studio 2010 debugger was already installed on the remote IIS web server and was running as a Windows service under the LocalSystem account.
Solution:
Enable "Anonymous Authentication" in addition to "Windows Authentication" on the web site hosted on the IIS web server.
As soon as I enabled anonymous authentication, the correct symbols were loaded by the VS remote debugger and I was able to hit the breakpoints.
Hope this helps you guys out.

Have you tried deleting the browser cache? Sometimes the browser hangs on to old code which is incompatible with the current build and thereby prevents debugging.

Does it run the app - without the debugger attached? It smells like you are attaching the debugger to a wrong process

I've had an issue before where under the build configuration screen some projects are unticked for a particular solution configuration, causing them to not build and therefore not be debuggable. Can you confirm whether or not code changes you make are actually being built and executed?
Also, what version of Windows and IIS are you running? Is it possible that your process is running under an AppPool with an account that's different to the account you're logged in with and perhaps it's a permissions problem? If it's Vista/Win7, is UAC turned on and are you running VS as administrator? I'll also second the suggestion to try a fresh project and see what that does. Are you in the debugger users local group on the machine?

Debugging RESTful WCF Service

I am attempting to debug a RESTful WCF service I've created using a web browser as my client. Initially things go well however after stopping the debug session and making some changes to my code when I restart it's as if the old code is still being run. My breakpoints are ignored and it's as if a process is not being stopped.
I am running the service within Visual Studio and here's the URL I am asking the browser to retrieve:
http://localhost:25000/IntegrationService.svc/DeskQueue/tophd
It's clear the proper method is being called but the breakpoint I have at the top of the method is being ignored. Is there some external process I need to stop?
Thanks for any help.

Maybe it would be more convenient to deploy your service on IIS (Project settings->Web->Use Local IIS Web server, Create virtual directory) and then debug the service from Visual Studio (Debug->Attach to process->w3wp.exe).

You need to kill Cassini (the WebDev Server) as it's holding on to your older built WCF Server code....it doesn't automatically reload the newer DLL.
There are a few options:
You can manually stop Cassini by looking in your Notification area for the "ASP.Net Development Server" icon (yellow with world inside) and selecting Stop (via the context menu or Dialog).
You could install the Visual Studio addin KillCassini, so you just have to press a key combo to kill the server when you wanted it killed
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/1269c9a1-fcfe-4b47-91e7-22c7027f3c41
You could turn on Edit-and-Continue, so that it restarts a new Cassini the next time you Debug
Automatically stop/restart ASP.NET Development Server on Build
If you have some really exotic debug/test/run cycle then you could leverage a drop-in compatible replacement for Cassini that comes with source code.
http://cassinidev.codeplex.com/

Attach Debugger to IIS instance

I have IIS 5.1 on a XP machine, and visual studio 2005. How do I go about attaching my debugger to IIS instance.
BTW: I'm not seeing the IIS process within the running processes or probably I don't know what to look for .

In Visual Studio:
Click "Debug" from the menu bar
Click "Attach to Process"
Check the "Show processes from all users" checkbox in the bottom left corner
Select aspnet_wp.exe, w3p.exe, or w3wp.exe from the process list
Click "Attach"

Just to clarify Jimmie R. Houts answer…
If you want to debug the web application VS and IIS you can do the following:
Host the site inside IIS (virtual directory etc).
Then in VS2005 do this:
Right Click on Web Project → Properties →
Start options → Use Custom Server → Base URL → Enter Site Address as
Hosted in IIS.
Hit F5 and you will be able to Debug your code
Same works for VS 2008 also.

I'm running Windows 7 with IIS Version 7.5 and I also needed to tick the "Show processes from all users" and "Show processes in all sessions" boxes - at the bottom of the "Attach to Process" dialog.
Also I had put my app in a specific App Pool which means you can then see it labeled against the w3wp.exe.

The possible names of the ASP.NET process:
w3wp.exe is IIS 6.0 and later.
aspnet_wp.exe is earlier versions of IIS.
iisexpress.exe is IISExpress.
dotnet.exe is ASP.NET Core.
inetinfo.exe is older ASP applications running in-process.
From Find the name of the ASP.NET process

The IIS process is aspnet_wp.exe.
In fact, attaching to the aspnet_wp.exe process is what VS does when you have your project set to use IIS for debugging.

You'll also need to open Internet Information Service From Control Panel > Administrative Tools. Right click the web site in question, click the home directory tab, and select the configuration button. This will open a new form with three tabs - click the debugging one and select the two options in the debugging flag section. This is also necessary to debug.

Using an Attach to IIS plugin (VS2015, VS2017) plugin saves a few clicks - especially when dealing with an ecosystem of IIS hosted sites (one frontend with multiple backend services say)

If you see the process [e.g. IIS Worker Process (w3wp.exe)] running is Task Manager, but not in the list of processes in debug > attach to process, you might need to run Visual Studio as administrator.