Remote Development using Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition?

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
6,236
Location
England
I'm curious if this is possible. I want to build an application on Windows Server 2016 (or Windows Server 2019 when it is finally re-released) but I won't be running it as my desktop operating system. What I would like to do is get a VPS or maybe a dedicated server and write my code on Windows 10 Pro using Visual Studio 2017 Community edition and then run the code on the remote Windows Server 2016 (or 2019) machine along with being able to debug it over the network.

Is this possible in a straightforward manner? I guess if that won't work I could install Visual Studio 2017 on the Windows Server machine and then use Remote Desktop Client to log into the computer over the network and use Visual Studio 2017 that way.

I'm curious what other people do in this situation?
 
I often have to do similar to what you describe but using the java tool stack rather than Microsoft. I have to say remote step and trace debugging is never my first choice, network latency and lack of control over the environment tends to slow everything down and become frustrating. Something that should take 5 minutes becomes several hours and you end up feeling very stabby. You also have extra steps when pushing new code to test. If at all possible, try to develop and run your tests on the same environment. Keep remote environments for user / 3rd party testing and rely on your logs and application data state to diagnose issues.
 
peterwalkley said:
I often have to do similar to what you describe but using the java tool stack rather than Microsoft. I have to say remote step and trace debugging is never my first choice, network latency and lack of control over the environment tends to slow everything down and become frustrating. Something that should take 5 minutes becomes several hours and you end up feeling very stabby. You also have extra steps when pushing new code to test. If at all possible, try to develop and run your tests on the same environment. Keep remote environments for user / 3rd party testing and rely on your logs and application data state to diagnose issues.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I always assumed that remote debugging / development wouldn't be the optimum solution but if I can at least get it working remotely it'll save a lot of time and effort on my part. I tried to install Windows Server 2016 inside VMWare Workstation Pro 15.0.1 but I seem to be getting errors which prevent me from completing set up for some reason. No idea why as my version of Workstation Pro is meant to support Windows Server 2016. I got the ISO from the Microsoft website.

Hades said:
I would be inclined to buy a cheap W10 pro key and run it as a guest OS under something like VirtualBox.
Click to expand...

I already have a Windows 10 Pro license installed in VMWare Workstation Pro 15.0.1 but I need to be able to test on Windows Server 2016 because I need the application to work as well as possible on Windows Server. So while I could do local development using Windows 10 Pro I'd still need to test it on Windows Server 2016 (or 2019).
 
I got Windows Server 2016 to install in VMWare Workstation Pro 15.0.1. For some reason, it wasn't working with Easy Install, but if I install it manually, it all works perfectly. That means I should be able to do development work on my home PC which is great. I can also have an Amazon EC2 t2.micro running in the cloud so I can test it there as well.
 
Develop on local machine. Write tests around the stuff I need to assert works. Deploy to server. Enjoy.

I don't see the need for you to concentrate so hard on actively developing it on win2016. What language are you developing with, anyway?
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Develop on local machine. Write tests around the stuff I need to assert works. Deploy to server. Enjoy.

I don't see the need for you to concentrate so hard on actively developing it on win2016. What language are you developing with, anyway?
Click to expand...

I'll be using C#.

The reason I'm so keen on targeting Windows Server 2016 (or 2019) is that I am developing a Windows network service that will run on the Windows Server platform. If I can do the main development work on Windows 10 Pro and then just do automated testing on Windows Server to make sure it works I'll be quite happy to do that as it makes my job much easier but I've been burned in the past when using a different development environment compared to the production environment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom