How to: Debug Windows Service in Visual Studio .NET

How to: Debug Windows Service in Visual Studio .NET


Debugging a Windows Service Application is a very unpleasant task because such application doesn’t run from within Visual Studio .NET. A Windows Service Application runs in the Services Control Manager context



In order to debug a service you must start it and then attach a debugger to the process in which it is running. After that, we can place breakpoints wherever we need to because all of the standard debugging functionality of Visual Studio .NET will be available. You can only attach the debugger to a running service. The attachment process interrupts the current functioning of your service; it does not actually stop or pause the service's processing. That is, if your service is running when you begin debugging, it is still technically in the Started state as you debug it, but its processing has been suspended


How to attach a debugger to a Windows Service
First ensure your service is installed and is running properly by inspecting the Service windows under Control Panel/Administrative Tools. Go to your Visual Studio’s main menu and choose: Debug/Attach process to… (this is available for Visual Studio .NET 2008

From the available processes list, choose the process you want to attach a debugger to. The service’s process will have the same name as the exe file generated by the compiler for that service.

Downsides of attaching a debugger

• You can't debug the OnStart() and Main() methods because you can only attach a debugger to a service after it has started running, which by then, the OnStart() method has already completed its execution and returned the control to the operating system.
• You must attach the debugger each time the project is restarted.
• This feature is not availble for Visual Studio .NET Express Edition
  

The type initializer threw an exception

Can not see the Form in the Designer. "The type initializer threw an exception." error
I got a problem recently when one of the forms I created could not be opened in Designer. Error message was as brief as "The type initializer for "..." threw an exception.". I found a good advice from Microsoft Developer Support guy Keith Fink how to debug the problem here.
Here is the advice:
Usually this means that your constructor of a particular type is throwing an exception. One way to debug this is to use aseparate instance of Devenv.exe and attach to the instance where yourproject is open, and then open the inherited form that causes the problem.

In the instance of Devenv.exe that you are using to debug with, followthese steps.

1. Start Devenv.exe.2. Select Tools->Debug Processes.3. Select the other instance of Devenv (where your project is loaded), andclick Attach.4. Make sure to select Common Language Runtime, and uncheck Nativedebugging, and click OK.5. Click Close.6. Select Debug->Exceptions.7. Expand Common Language Runtime Exceptions->System.8. Select the System.TypeInitializationException.9. Under the "When the exception is thrown" section, select the "Break intothe debugger" option, and click OK.10. Switch over to the other instance of Devenv, and open the form so thatthe exception is thrown. When that happens the first instance of Devenvshould break on the line of code where the exception is thrown.

One more hint - in the Form code DesignMode property is useful (it'll tell you if your Form is loaded in designer).
Note that the DesignMode property should not be checked from within the constructor or from any code that the constructor calls. A constructor is called before a control is sited, and it's the site that determines whether or not a control is in design mode. DesignMode will also be false in the constructor. I personally like to put it into Form_Load event (Form_FormClosing if you want to do something like logging on form close).
Example:
...
if(!this.DesignMode)
{
// chek authentication or something else
}

And finally a good article about Design-time integration of controls.

10 Articles you should Read

10 .Dot net articels you should READ

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Optimization Tips: Using HTTP Compression
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ASP.NET Memory: Thou shalt not store UI objects in cache or session scope
Surprisingly the issue I wrote about in "the eventhandlers that made the memory baloon" (Jan 2006) is something that still happens very frequently, I reference it in cases at least a few times a month. Just this last week I had different variations of it crop up in different cases so in this post I will show a different variation, what to look out for and how to identify it.

Using enum in .net

Using a Enum in C#.net
Code Sample
// declaring a enum
enum Operations
{
add,sub,mul,div
};

public void mymethod()
{
// creating object of enum
Operations op ;
// assinging value to enum
op = Operations.add ;
// using it to compare
if(op== Operations.add)
{
// do somethng.. addition
}
}