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I am getting the error message "Unable to launch the IIS Express Web server" when trying to debug a web app in SafeMode. I am kicking off safemode with the devenv.exe /SafeMode switch and it loads my solution fine and it builds fine. But when I try and run the web app I get the aforementioned error message.

When I run VS normally (outside of SafeMode), all works as expected.

Just an FYI on why I am running in safe mode. There are times that I need to run my windows instance in a VM instead of booting into it. When this happens, trying to run VS (with all the plugins) is unbearable. So I just started using the SafeMode switch to disable all the plugins instead of turning them all off then having to turn them back on later. I did not think that turning off the plugins would make it so I could not kick off a sub process like IIS express...

Any suggestions. I am also very open to other ways to automate the launch of VS with/without plugins.

I am running Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate on Windows 8.1

alanquillin
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Yes, currently there is a issue blocking debugging managed application under /safemode. A possible workaround it to use "devenv.exe /rootsuffix", E.g. "devenv /rootsuffix LessPlugin". This way the Visual Studio will have no VSIX-based extensions. This won't be as clean as /safemode, but still faster if you have lots of your own VSIX installed. You may even install VSIX under the new root hive and still get it back the next time you start with the same /rootsuffix parameter. This is the same command used to start Visual Studio if you have been writing VS extension with VSSDK. See here and here for more explanation on rootsuffix.

Fangliang Xue
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