How to capture IIS Express output when run from Visual Studio 2010 SP1?

Question

If you run IIS Express from the command line, anything you write Console.Out in your web app is displayed in the command line output. This is very handy for trouble shooting LINQ to SQL translation issues if you set DataContext.Log = Console.Out. However, if you check "Use IIS Express" in the web project properties in VS 2010 SP1 you never see the command line.

Can you redirect IIS Express Console.Out to a log file or something?

Answer 1

I found a way to write directly to the Debug Console window via damieng's blog:

class DebugTextWriter : System.IO.TextWriter {
   public override void Write(char[] buffer, int index, int count) {
       System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(new String(buffer, index, count));
   }

   public override void Write(string value) {
       System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(value);
   }

   public override Encoding Encoding {
       get { return System.Text.Encoding.Default; }
   }
}

You can attach it to a DataContext like you would with Console.Out:

#if DEBUG
   db.Log = new DebugTextWriter();
#endif

http://damieng.com/blog/2008/07/30/linq-to-sql-log-to-debug-window-file-memory-or-multiple-writers

Answer 2

You can see console output, if you setup 'image file execution option' for iisexpress.exe. Only issue is, you will see a popup console window when a new iisexpress.exe is started. You can setup this only when you want to see console traces.

Do following to setup image file execution option:

1. install windbg from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx

2. Setup following registry key (This link may help you http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a329t4ed(VS.71).aspx)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iisexpress.exe]

"Debugger"="c:\\windbg -g -G"

You can disable image file execution option by renaming or deleting above registry key.