CODEWITHSUNDEEP
debuggingwinapiwindows-8windows-runtime
bashrc
bashrc

Reputation: 4835

How does a debugger work for metro apps?

So basically what my trivial research on debuggers lead me to was a debugger works by creating a wrapper around the original process and the process runs within the wrapper.(Not in the scenario where debugger is attached to an already running process). So how does it work for metro apps? Metro apps can only run inside the app container which is allocated to them when they are installed ( actually metro apps are not installed in the true sense) and the mapping between app container and metro app is recorded in a registry key. (All from my research,dont know how correct please correct me if I am wrong). So does the debugger also run within the same app container?

EDIT: A short note on the driving force why I wanted to learn this. I am stuck with this. So I was thinking if I can achieve this IPC by making the desktop app as a debugger (Or automating the debugger, drats this is getting even more creepier) and simulating the communication between metro apps and desktop apps using DebugBreak(From inside the metro app) and Continue statements(From the pseudo debugger app)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1774

Answers (2)

Matthew Merry
Matthew Merry

Reputation: 61

Han's answer is correct. For Metro style apps, we introduced a new feature that allows you to start the app suspended and we will launch the registered debugger with command line options to indicate what process to attach to. See the IPackageDebugSettings API for information on this feature, or check out the http://winrt.codeplex.com project for an example usage. I'm not certain, but there may be developer license restrictions around this API.

As to your original intention of supporting IPC between a Metro style app and a desktop app - as the linked thread states, this is unsupported.

Upvotes: 2

Hans Passant
Hans Passant

Reputation: 941715

The mental image of a "wrapper" is wrong. A debugger is just a separate process that uses the built-in Windows support for debugging. It has the SE_DEBUG privilege and is initiated by an app that has the normal desktop app privileges. Like Visual Studio. So it doesn't run inside the AppContainer itself.

Upvotes: 3

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