Running in VS studio or from exe ?

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How can I detect if my program is running inside VS (using F5) OR if it was started from a double-click on the exe-file in Explorer? (VS2022 and C#)

What I have tried:

I have tride using the callstack and it's complicated. Is there an easier way?

Posted yesterday

Bosse62

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0x01AA yesterday

Have a look here: Debugger.IsAttached Property (System.Diagnostics) | Microsoft Learn[^]

Nelek yesterday

:Thumbsup:

0x01AA yesterday

Thank you Nelek

Dave Kreskowiak yesterday

You also have this misconception that Visual Studio is executing your code. That is not the case. Whenever you run the code, even from inside Visual Studio, you are ALWAYS running an .exe.

When run from inside Visual Studio, VS just attaches the debugger to your running executable.

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Chris Copeland · Answer 1 · 2024-10-14T04:16:00

If you're happy to assume that a program being executed from VS is being run in debug mode, you could always use the #if DEBUG macro. You can either use it in the code direct, such as:

C#

public void MyFunction()
{
#if DEBUG
    // do some debugger specific thing
#endif
}

Or if you'd like your code to have access to this in several areas, consider making a static variable:

C#

public static class Debugging
{
#if DEBUG
    public static readonly bool IsActive = true;
#else
    public static readonly bool IsActive = false;
#endif
}

But if you're wanting to also catch it if someone runs it in release mode as well, then you'd probably need to do a process look-up. I think it's vshost.exe or something that is attached to the process?

Luc Pattyn · Answer 2 · 2024-10-14T08:36:00

Hi,

Visual Studio can add whatever you want (e.g. "INSIDE_VISUAL") to the command line when executing (actually launching) your application, see project properties/debug/cmdlinearguments.

your code can get the command line and look for whatever it was you decided to add; one way to do that is by reading the property Environment.CommandLine.

:)

Pete O'Hanlon · Answer 3 · 2024-10-15T00:26:00

There are a few ways to accomplish this. One way is to use the IsDebuggerAttached method, but another method relies on the fact that Visual Studio sets some environment variables when launching the process that contains your executable. You can use this code to determine whether Visual Studio started the app:

C#

bool isVisualStudioStarted = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("VSHOST_PROCESSID"));

Running in VS studio or from exe ?

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