I've been reading all sorts of knowledge base posts, books, forums, etc. But this is a really convoluted subject, and nobody has been straightforward on the topic. So here goes nothing.
I am trying to deploy an ASP.net web application (and for the record, because this is for testing and also for my own learning process, I'm doing both 1.1 and 2.0 versions) to a remote server. My machine is running XP with SP2; the remote server is running Windows Server 2003. I have used the Copy Web Site... command within Visual Studio (2003 for 1.1, 2005 for 2.0) to copy the site to the remote machine through a file share. I have installed the Remote Debugging tools for both versions of Visual Studio on the remote machine. I have set up websites on the remote machine with the copied sites.
How do I debug the remote site with my local version of Visual Studio? I have tried attaching to the process on the remote machine; but I keep being told that the remote machine can't connect with my machine. I can't locate the exact reason; I do know that I'm NOT running firewall software (which is fine; the entire network is insulated, so we don't need it). So it's not a firewall issue.
Nobody seems to address just exactly HOW to debug an ASP.NET application; they talk about how to set up the debugging environment (which doesn't work as simply as they put it); they talk about how to deploy the remote application; but they don't talk about the relationship between these two events, as if they have nothing to do with each other!
So, do I need to load the remote copy of the application into Visual Studio in order to debug? Or, do I open my local copy of the application and then attach to the remote process? What is different between 2003 and 2005? I have read more than once that 2003's remote debugging environment is a pain; can I debug a 2003 application with 2005, if the website is set to Framework version 1.1? Should I remove my local copy of the application in order to debug? I've had to clear my VSWebCache several times to get it installed right; when I load my local copy, is the remote copy not really being loaded into memory? HOW do I debug remotely???
Thanks for your help.