Azure Emulator won't open the UI console due to supposed permissions issue

Question

I'm getting an error with the Azure Emulator.

Steps:

1. Launch an Azure project to kick off the emulator.
2. I see that the emulator is running, browsers with apps launch!
3. Right click on Azure emulator icon and select "Show Compute Emulator UI"

It wont launch. Error:

"Unable to determine the emulator running mode. Please ensure you have sufficient permissions"

What causes this error?

Environment:

• Win 8
• VS Ultimate (running as Admin, of course, cant launch AZ project otherwise)
• Azure SDK 2.1 (was upgraded in place from 2.0)
• Running multiple sites in a single web role

Answer 1

I have also ran into this issue many times. I think it's an issue with compute emulator itself so I guess we would need to wait for the next version of SDK to come out. Please ensure that under "Emulator" setting, you are selected "Use Full Emulator" (I still ran into this problem even after this setting was selected).

A possible workaround that worked for me is to manually start the compute emulator instead of Visual Studio starting it. For me that always worked. This is what you will need to do:

• If emulator is running, then first kill it by going into task manager.
• Right click on "csmonitor.exe" in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Azure\Emulator" directory and run that as Administrator.
• Next right click on "Azure Emulator" icon in the system tray and start compute emulator in "Full" mode as shown in screenshot below.