Remote Debugging code running on a Windows XP machine without Visual Studio installed

Question

I want to remote debug an executable that is running on a Windows XP machine. This machine does not have Visual Studio installed. I am running Visual Studio .NET from another machine on the network. (I'm easily able to remotely debug other XP machines which have Visual Studio .NET installed).

I located the remote debugging tool ( msvsmon.exe in this case) copied the folder to a local directory on the machine I wish to debug and ran it. The cmd window indicated that I was running "Visual C++ Remote Debug Monitor (x86) Version 7.00.96"

I attempt to select the machine from VS in order to attach to the process and I received an error:

Unable to connect to the machine . The debugger is not properly installed. Run setup to install or repair the debugger.

As I'm not able to find debugging tools online that are old enough, I'm not sure how to proceed.

Answer 1

While there is still time, you should get a copy of VS2010 Service Patch 2, and install it, the version of msvsmon.exe in VS2010 is the LAST release which supports XP remote debugging. In my work we develop for XP Embedded, and have a large installed base used in manufacturing globally. Our customers would scream bloody murder if we changed the runtime which would break/damage/shutdown manufacturing. So we are now forced to migrate to VS2019 and yet we build for XP clients. Our new products do run newer Windows Embedded versions, but the legacy products are still in demand, and are XP embedded based. There is no remote debug capability to my knowledge with VS2019, and our firm is not allowed to distribute VS2010 to our clients so they can single step debug. Very frustrating.