Running and debugging two programs in visual studio in a single solution and single VS instance

Question

I've got a single solution with two projects, in Visual Studio 2010. How can I simultaneously debug both projects in a single instance of Visual Studio? This has bugged me in the past, and I'm currently working on an application which involves the two executables communicating with each other, and it'd be easiest to debug if I had a way to debug them both at the same time.

They don't actually NEED to be in a single instance of Visual Studio, but it would make this process far simpler.

Answer 1

If you right click on the solution in the solution explorer and choose "Properties", you can then set the startup project option to "multiple". Setting the projects you want to debug to have an action of "Start" will mean that you will debug both of them at the same time when you hit F5/Start Debugging.

The benefit of this approach is that you will start debugging both of your projects at the same time with a single action instead of having to manually start debugging one and then start debugging the other.

Answer 2

If they are separate projects in a single solution, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from running both at the same time inside Visual Studio - just right-click on each project in turn in Solution Explorer and select the option to debug a new instance.