Visual Studio 2015 Preview - Keep IIS Express Running

Question

I'm trying to get a decent development experience with Visual Studio 2015 Preview. To do that I'd love to have my IIS Express running all the time instead of requiring me to start debugging.

Anyway to do that? Tried command line:

IISExpress.exe /path:pathmyproject/wwwroot
IISExpress.exe /site:SiteName

and

IISExpress.exe /path:pathtomyproject

First two give me:

Unable to locate project.json

Third one

HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden

Answer 1

Not exactly an answer, but if you can view in browser instead of Debug.

The command for view in browser is: CTRL+ SHIFT + W (or right click on project and select View -> View in broswer.)

IIS Express will start but will not close when you exit your browser.

Hope this helps, this is what I do (specially now that build/compile is no required with roslyn).

Answer 2

Similar to VS 2013, if you disable Edit and Continue IIS Express will continue to run when you stop your debug sessions.

Open the menu item Tools/Options, look for the Debugging/General option. Scroll down and uncheck "Enable Edit and Continue"

Answer 3

in the Debug menu > Start without debugging (Ctr + F5)

Answer 4

Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 adds the support to keep IIS Express Running

For ASP.NET Web Application projects, when "Enable Edit and Continue" checkbox is unchecked, the IIS Express process will no longer stop working every time you stop debugging.

Visual Studio Update 3 RC Release Notes