Standalone .NET CLR Debugger for .NET 4.0?

4
votes

I have a COM application which is effectively an add-in for PowerPoint. In previous versions, it utilized .NET 2.0 and later, .NET 3.5 (which both have the same CLR version). I used to WinDbg and CDB for debugging my .NET applications, purely for exceptions. It works nicely... However, it does not work now that I have used .NET framework for my latest version!

Does anyone know of a fairly straight-forward and lightweight .NET 4.0 debugger, which would be similar to WinDbg? I understand Microsoft no longer support CLR debugging for .NET 4.0, but why???

Additionally, would anyone know of any other 'light-weight' method I can use to debug my application? It is installed on hundreds of machines and installing VS2010 is not an option unfortunately!

Appreciate any input.

Mike

1
.netdebuggingcom
understand Microsoft no longer support CLR debugging for .NET 4.0, but why??? That is not true. CLR debugging with SOS / PSSCOR works fine for v4. – vcsjones
@vcsjones is this standalone and able to run from a USB, just like WinDbg? – DerekP
Why is Visual Studio not an option? – Security Hound
@Ramhound the app is installed on hundreds of client machines, and when I try to troubleshoot issues wherre I'd say a .NET debug could be useful on their machines, installing Visual Studio is no exactly ideal. – DerekP
@DerekP I'm saying that WinDbg does work with v4. You just need to load the sos.dll debugging extension, which is included in the framework. – vcsjones

1 Answers

1
votes

I'm not sure what you mean by WinDbg not able to debug .NET 4 as that is definitely supported. SOS, PSSCOR, and SOSEX all work with .NET 4.

However, keep in mind that the .NET runtime DLL was renamed in .NET 4 from mscorwks to clr, so when you load SOS you have to do .loadby sos clr instead of .loadby sos mscorwks.