A couple of weeks ago I was having issues tracking down a particularly confusing performance issue with Velowear.com.  Since Velowear.com utilizes asp.net and webcom to work with the Ecometry order management system I could not use the built in Cassini web server to run and debug the web site.  For the last two years I'd do all my coding on my own computer and upload the changes to a test server to see if everything would compile and run as expected.  This worked ok, but it did not allow me to easily debug things, plus it was a pain if two people were trying to work on the web site at the same time...   I realized I needed to get the debugging features working to be able to solve this performance issue. 

Turns out this was easier than I thought (originally I tried to get remote debugging to work).

The basic steps to do proper Visual Studio development for a .net based Ecometry web site are the following:

  1. Install webcom.dll on your local machine
  2. setup IIS on your development computer and use the default web site
  3. Use the IIS feature in Visual Studio to run/debug the web site

Here are more detailed Steps using screen-shots from Windows Vista (IIS 7):

  1. Install webcom.dll on your computer.  This can be accomplished 2 ways:
    1. Run the webcom setup that comes with your EcomPak (this will also install the sample asp templates on to your c:)
    2. Copy the version specific webcom.dll to you %windir%/system32 folder and then running regsvr32 %windir%/system32/webcom.dll
  2. Install IIS on you local computer (must be running windows XP Pro or Vista Business or better).  If running vista make sure you install the IIS Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration compatibility.
    image
  3. Install Visual Studio (Express Edition should work just fine).
  4. Configure your default web app using IIS (InetMgr.exe in Vista).  Create a copy of your Ecometry web site on your local machine and in the IIS management tool point your default web site to it.  In Vista go to actions on the right column and choose "basic settings".
    image
  5. Start IIS if it's not running.
    image
  6. Open Visual Studio, got the file menu->open web site and choose IIS.  Select your default site.
    image
  7. Hit the play button and see if your web site compiles and runs.
    image
  8. Use breakpoints to step through your code.
    image
  9. You are now debugging your Ecometry/.net based web site!