How to attach a debugger at process creation?

Question

I would like to debug a .NET application that fails immediately on startup (and exists without an error message or log), but I can't attach a debugger to it because the process exists almost immediately after I run it. I don't have the source code for the app, so I can't do "Start Debugging". I tried using a Visual Studio macro to start a process, attach to it, then break, but the macro is too slow and by the time it finds the process, the process has already exited:

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module Module1
    Sub RunAndAttach()
        Try
            Dim dbg As Debugger3 = DTE.Debugger
            Dim trans As Transport = dbg.Transports.Item("Default")
            Dim sysProc As Process = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(New ProcessStartInfo("C:\Temp\CrashingApp.exe") With {.WorkingDirectory = "C:\Temp"})
            Dim proc As EnvDTE90.Process3 = dbg.GetProcesses(trans, "ALLON-PC").Item("CrashingApp.exe")
            If (Not sysProc.HasExited) Then
                proc.Attach()
                proc.Break(False)
            Else
                MsgBox("Process " + proc.Name + " has already has exited.")
            End If
        Catch ex As System.Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

End Module

Is there a way to attach the debugger to a newly created process, like F5 does?

Thanks!

Answer 1

1. Create a new project (a console project is fine).
2. Right-click the project and choose "Properties".
3. Click the "Debug" tab.
4. Choose "Start External Program:"
5. Select the program.
6. Hit F5.