Source code available here

ReallyStopDebugger

General purpose process and debug killer for Visual Studio

What is it (really)?

ReallyStopDebugger is a simple Visual Studio extension which allows to stop debugging and kill processes quickly.

What can I use it for?

During development one can stumble upon build errors caused by MSBuild processes or previous debug instances which weren't killed in time, and lock our solutions assemblies/resources, thus stopping the build. This is a quick solution to that problem, altough it can be also considered as a general purpose process killer extension.

Compatibility

The extension is supported by Visual Studio 2012, 2013 and 2015. Visual Studio '15' also has experimental support in the GitHub release
IMPORTANT: If you are updating from version 0.9, you might need to reinstall the extension to load properly (sorry for that!)

Usage

ReallyStopDebugger has 2 modes (Tools menu):

• Normal mode (also called configuration mode) (Ctrl+D, Ctrl+C): In this windowed mode you can set up which processes you want to target, along with additional options
• Silent mode (Ctrl+D, Ctrl+D): This mode runs the extension silently, using the last configuration used in the normal mode, and redirects status messages to the Output window (if available)

Configuration window options

• User criteria - Lets you choose beteween targeting all proceses or only those running as your current user. Useful for shared development environments, such as VMs
• Process criteria - Lets you add another filtering beteween all processes or only those spawned by the visual studio instance
• Attempt to force clean solution - Will try to manually erase /bin and /obj directories in the solution. Requires VS to be run as Administrator to work properly

All changes are saved after clowing the configuration window.

Limitations

• Processes will be handled with the same privilege as the VS's owner
• /bin and /obj directories may not be cleaned completely (this is related to the previous issue)

Dependencies

To compile and run the solution Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition is required, plus the VS 2015 SDK and a strong name key file (Key.snk) to compile and sign the assembly (you can disable this option in the project properties, Signing tab).

TODOs

• Improve directory cleaning support