ASP.NET Remote Debugging, Windows XP SP2 and .NET Framework 2.0

I did not have to create and debug any
ASP.NET application for a long time, but since I'm creating an online
Questions/Answers application, I had to use the really nice debugging
features brought by Visual Studio .NET.

To be specific, I did not have to debug any
remote web site since I installed the Windows XP SP2. My configuration
is quite simple, I host my application on a development Windows 2003
Server and I design with VS.NET on my Windows XP machine.

So when I trying to debug my web
application, all I could get was : "Unable to
debug the application"
or "The remote
debugger could not connect to the local machine"
or a really
helpfull "Cannot debug process"
.

The first reaction when seeing things like
this is to check the local and remote VS Developers
and
Debugger Users
security groups. But every thing was
fine there... In fact, the problem lies in the DCOM security
configuration. Installing the SP2 removed the right for the anonymous
account to use DCOM remotely... but not for the Everyone
account. Odd.

The only thing to do is to get there : Run / dcomcnfg.exe /
Component Services / Computers / My Computer / Properties / COM Security
/ Edit Limits
, and to check "Remote Access / Allow
".
Easy.

This solved my first problem, the remote
debugging. The second one is still ASP.NET debugging, but locally
this time.

I have both VS.NET 2003 and 2005 installed
on my local machine, and so are both 1.1 and 2.0 .NET Framework
versions. Installing 2.0 over 1.1 changes the default framework used by
the Windows XP IIS to version 2.0 which breaks the 1.1 debugger :)

The simple thing to do here is this : IIS / Web Sites /
[WebSite] / Properties / ASP.NET
, then select 1.1.4322
for the ASP.NET Version field and that's it :)

Man, I really like being able to debug my
Web Applications, I really missed it ! (And so was Karouman
actually, who was debugging blindly by guessing exceptions :p
)