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Background

I want to run my ASP.NET site under full IIS on my local machine so I can be debugging more quickly after a rebuild. My team's policy is that developers don't have admin privileges on their machines. Even without admin rights, it should be possible to debug under IIS by configuring the IIS worker thread to run under my own account, but it's not working like that for me.

The worker process is running under my own account:

App pools screenshot

And when I am running Visual Studio as admin, the thread is shown as running under my own account:

attach dialog - admin

But when running Studio as a non-admin user, the process list doesn't include the IIS worker thread unless I tick "all users", and then the User Name is blank:

attach dialog - non-admin

Question

Is there anything I can do to get the thread to show up and be attachable when running Visual Studio under my own user?

OutstandingBill
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    Please use Google to learn session isolation. IIS worker processes, even if running under your account, are in session 0, not your logon user session. – Lex Li Jul 03 '18 at 12:26
  • Thanks Lex, that's interesting. [Apparently](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askperf/2007/04/27/application-compatibility-session-0-isolation/) session 0 isolation came in around 2007. This [KB article](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askperf/2007/04/27/application-compatibility-session-0-isolation/) from around 2015 suggests though that I should nevertheless be able to debug. – OutstandingBill Jul 04 '18 at 02:30
  • You can read your linked threads where I left my comments. ASP.NET development should run VS as administrator, and IIS running a true service account (not your account). If a team ask its members to do ASP.NET without that, I will laugh and quit to save my life. Of course, you have your own judgement. – Lex Li Jul 04 '18 at 02:52
  • Did you ever fix this? I'm having the same problem – tamj0rd2 Jan 14 '19 at 12:19
  • @tamj0rd2, no. I'm doing as Lex Li suggested and running Visual Studio as local admin. In my situation, the pros outweigh the cons. Its not ideal though. – OutstandingBill Jan 14 '19 at 20:03
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    @tamj0rd2, in fact I may not have followed the instructions properly. I'm fairly sure I didn't follow the steps in this article https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/how-to-run-the-worker-process-under-a-user-account?view=vs-2017. You might have more luck than me if you do. I'm not in a position to confirm that was the problem ATM, sorry. – OutstandingBill Jan 14 '19 at 20:47

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