Debugging shell extension in Windows 7

Question

I\'m trying to debug shell extension (IContextMenu) in Windows 7 with Visual C++ 2008. I have set DesktopProcess=1 in the registry and set host app to explorer.exe. But when I s

Answer 1

I've found a nice workflow that I think is the fastest way to rapidly iterate the code-build-test cycle when developing shell extensions. The following should work on any Windows version.

First prepare - set the start program of your shell extension project to be c:\windows\explorer.exe and also set it to be the start-up project.

Then, whenever you want to debug your shell extension perform the following steps:

• Click on the task bar and press Alt-F4 - this will bring up the shut down dialog
• Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Escape - this combination will close explorer.
• Use Alt-Tab to go back to Visual Studio and press F5 - explorer will now launch with the VS debugger attached to it from the very beginning.
• When done, just stop the debugger session. This will kill the debugged instance of explorer and will also automatically start a normal instance of it. This will also unlock the shell extension DLL so that you can build it again.

Caveat on Vista and 7 - be sure to run the Visual Studio that you use for debugging in non-Administrator mode (non-elevated), so that the explorer is started in its usual non-elevated mode.