Remote debugging with VS 2012 on Windows 2008, 32 bit

Question

I have installed on my development machine VS2012.

I want to install the remote debugging tools on a Windows Server 2008, 32 bit.

I installed the rtools_setup_x86.exe on the server:

1. It tells me it will install the Windows Web Services API for me.

2. I get this error: The Windows Web Services installer failed to execute.  The installer exited with error 'Data of this type is not supported.'

Answer 1

I have installed on my development machine VS2012.
I want to install the remote debugging tools on a Windows Server 2008, 32 bit.

I think the remote debugging is Windows 7 and later operating systems
only. Since Server 2008 is Vista generation, I don't think it's
supported.

Dave

Answer 2

Thanks for Dave’s help.

Hi Johnson,

Sorry for that I couldn’t repro this issue, like Gong’s suggestion in this thread, to get the issue confirmed and diagnose by product team, would you please create connect report for it? You will get email notification for update.http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/CreateFeedback.aspx

If you submit it, you could share us the link here, I will help you vote it. Thanks for your understanding.

Best Regards,

---

Jack Zhai [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 3

Hi Everyone,

There is a known issue in the installer for Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2012 that is breaking remote debugging on Windows Server 2008.  While we work on this issue, you can use the following work-around:

1)   If not already, please install “Platform Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB971644)” from Window Update (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971644?wa=wsignin1.0). It will install KB971512, KB971513, and KB960362 in “Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Installed Updates”.

2)   Install Windows Live Essentials from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=255474

Following these instructions should prevent you from seeing the error regarding Windows Web Services API.

Thanks.

---

Brad Sullivan - Program Manager - Visual Studio Debugger

Answer 4

After following all the steps provided, I just got another error:

---------------------------
Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor
---------------------------
Msvsmon was unable to start a server named 'DEVELVM:4016'. The following error occurred: The remote debugger was unable to initialize Microsoft Windows Web Services (webservices.dll). If the problem continues, try reinstalling the Windows Web Services redistributable. This redistributable can be found under the 'Remote Debugger\Common Resources\Windows Updates' folder.

View Msvsmon's help for more information.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

But it turns out that I was probably using wrong debugger. I was using debugger from 

c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\

when I was looking for the 'Remote Debugger\Common Resources\Windows Updates' folder (which BTW does not exist) I realized that there is another debugger in c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\ which works.

So I'm not sure if it was really necessary to install Live Essentials on server.

---

Đ.

Answer 5

Hi Đonny,

Do you mean that it worked well if you use the x64 version of the VS remote debugging Monitor?

As far as I know, the 32-bit version of Visual Studio MSVSMON.EXE cannot debug 64-bit processes or 64-bit dumps and the 64-bit version of the Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor (MSVSMON.EXE) cannot be used to debug 32-bit processes or 32-bit dumps.

Reference:

“How to debug a 64-bit dump using the Visual Studio debugger”.

Best Regards,

---

Jack Zhai [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 6

Hi Jack,

I was always using 64bit version (because I wanna debug AnyCPU IIS application on 64bit machine). But originally I was using 64bit version from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\ which didn't work. When I tried 64bit version from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x64\ it worked.

---

Đ.

Answer 7

Hi Đonny,

Glad to receive your reply.

It seems that it is related to the install path, as my understanding, we would check the path where we install the VS, I doubt that your VS installed in the path C:\Program Files\....

In addition, it would be better if you open up a new thread for the new question. In this way, our discussion here will not deviate too much from the original issue. This will make answer searching in the forum easier and be beneficial to other community members as well. Thank you for your understanding.

Have a nice day,

---

Jack Zhai [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 8

I've found alot of ppl bump into this scenario. Tried to cup the solution in my blog post:
http://livshitz.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/remote-debugging-visual-studio-unable-to-connect-to-the-microsoft-visual-studio-remote-debugging-monitor/#more-144


Here is the snippet of the solution:

Make sure firewall is not blocking your request
Make sure the installed version of Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor is supported by the running Visual Sutdio
Create local user on remote target, with the exact user name and password as the debugging user (that runs VS process)
If dns resolving is unavailable (source and target on different domains) open this file
"c:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
and add a new line at the bottom:
"xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx TargetHostName" (without quotes)
This will map the target host name with an IP.