Where is the main function in VB.Net

Question

I have taken over support of a VB.Net WinForms application. I am actually a c# developer and am more familiar with the setup of visual studio projects in c# projects. Now I am trying to determine why my application is crashing on a specific XP installation, and I read the suggestion here

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winformssetup/thread/53c2de93-ab33-41d0-b5dd-7ca5fbfa5c24/

to add a try catch block in the main function. This is suggested in about the 5th post from the bottom. (I will quote it below) However, if I look in the VB.Net visual studio project, I do not find a Main() procedure. What I do find is a grey folder called "My project" with a "Application.myapp" file inside it. This file has an associated designer file, but if I click on it I see the following xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<MyApplicationData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <MySubMain>true</MySubMain>
  <MainForm>MDIMain</MainForm>
  <SingleInstance>false</SingleInstance>
  <ShutdownMode>0</ShutdownMode>
  <EnableVisualStyles>true</EnableVisualStyles>
  <AuthenticationMode>0</AuthenticationMode>
  <SaveMySettingsOnExit>true</SaveMySettingsOnExit>
</MyApplicationData>

So can anyone enlighten me to where the actual main procedure call is for this VB.Net project so that I can try catch the exception that is occurring. If, as I suspect, there isn't actually a Main procedure in my VB.Net project, can someone maybe let me know how I can go about doing the following in my project:

[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
    try
    {
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
        Application.Run(new Form1());
    }
    catch (System.IO.FileNotFoundException ex)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(ex.Message + "    \n\n\n" + ex.StackTrace);
    }
}

Answer 1

VB has a special mode called “Application Framework” (which can be found under the main options).

If this mode is enabled, the compiler auto-generates a Main method and some fluff around it. You can disable this option; however, this may cause problems in the project since the application framework functionality might actually be used by the project.

Alternatively, you can register an event handler for uncaught exceptions (UnhandledExceptions) using this same application framework.

Answer 2

The more VB way to do this is to open the Application properties and click on the ViewApplicationEvents button. This will open the Application.xaml.vb file where you can add custom event handlers for the application. Select Application Events from the left drop-down and you can easily access a bunch of events including DispatcherUnhandledException, Activated, Navigating, Startup, Exit, etc. You can also add the Main method here by selecting Applciation from the left drop-down and selecting Main from the right drop down.

In the case of WindowsForms applications, the process is similar. However when you select the Applciation Events button, the file that is shown is the ApplicationEvents.vb file. In here, to add a global error handler, select the left drop-down and select MyApplication Events. Then in the right drop-down, add the UnhandledException handler. You can also create your Main method here as well.