Microsoft Child Process Debugging Power Tool

This extension allows Visual Studio to automatically debug child processes (new processes spawned from a process that you are already debugging).

Some important things to note:

• The Visual Studio 2022 version of this extension is here.
• The power tool requires a native debugger. This means if you are debugging .NET code, you must choose to enable mixed mode debugging (so managed and native) -- for .NET Desktop projects, this is done from the "Debug" tab on the project properties page (for most managed project types this is done by checking the "Enable native code debugging" checkbox under the "Enable debuggers" section of the page. For .NET Core projects, see MSDN.
• The tool works for both launching projects (F5), and for attaching to processes

Updates for Version 1.6.0:

• Improved support for dark theme
• Added support for command line filtering

Updates for Version 1.5.0:

• Added support for ARM and ARM64 debugging
• Made the link to CopyChildProcessBackend.cmd selectable so that it can be copy/pasted
• A few other small bug fixes

Updates for Version 1.3.0:

• Dropped support for Visual Studio 2013 (support removed because SHA-1 signing is no longer supported)
• Changed support for CreateProcessAsUser so that this works even if Visual Studio is NOT running as an admin. This is important because CreateProcessAsUser can be used to launch low-rights processes.
• Updated .NET engine names in engine selection drop down to match Visual Studio 16.8

Updates for Version 1.2.4: Fixed the manifest to support all 16.* versions (Visual Studio 2019), instead of only 16.0.

Updates for Version 1.2.3: Added support for Visual Studio 2019, and for .NET Core debugging (Windows-only). Note .NET Core, like all other forms of managed debugging, requires enabling mixed mode debugging. See MSDN for instructions.

Updates for Version 1.2.2: Added support for child processes created using CreateProcessWithLogonW (requires running Visual Studio as an admin)

Updates for Version 1.2.1: Added support for child processes created using CreateProcessWithTokenW (requires running Visual Studio as an admin)

Updates for Version 1.2:

• Support for VS 2017
• Improves support for the Visual Studio Dark Theme
• Resolves issue where settings weren't automatic saved when start debugging

Using the tool

Once you install the power tool from the Visual Studio Gallery, a new menu item will appear on the "Debug" menu under the "Other Debug Targets" sub-menu.

When you open the settings page, you'll see a checkbox to enable child process debugging. Child process debugging is now enabled for all child processes, and will by default use the same debug engine settings you are debugging the parent process with (e.g. native only, or mixed mode).

More information can be found in the blog post announcing this tool.