Debug child executable of a process

Question

I have an executable on a Windows system, e.g. test.exe and it is started by a process parent.exe. When I debug it in Visual Studio, I use "attach to process" to debug the test.exe, but by the time I attach the debugger to process, the entry point function in test.exe has already been called.

Is there a way to set a breakpoint on the entry point function in this setup?

test.exe can only be started by parent.exe, it cannot start on its own. — user1254554, Sep 08 '15 at 08:01
Visual Studio is not good ad debugging child processes. WinDbg has `.childdbg 1` for that. — Thomas Weller, Sep 08 '15 at 08:11
Try setting the debugger in [ImageFileExecutionOptions](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a329t4ed%28VS.71%29.aspx) to Visual Studio for test.exe — Thomas Weller, Sep 08 '15 at 08:14
[Child Process Debugging Power Tool](https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a1141bff-463f-465f-9b6d-d29b7b503d7a) might also help — Thomas Weller, Sep 08 '15 at 08:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

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If you control the executable, add __debugbreak to main. This hardcodes a breakpoint which you'd usually set at runtime.

When this statement is executed, Windows will start the Just In Time debugger

edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

Community

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answered Sep 16 '15 at 20:23

MSalters

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 16 '15 at 19:41

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Use WinDbg instead. File->Open Executable and check the box "Debug child processes also".

answered Sep 16 '15 at 19:41

rainhaven

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Debug child executable of a process

2 Answers2