How To Debug Visual Basic COM Components That Are Used Within Active Server Pages

This step-by-step procedure demonstrates how to debug (or step through) Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) Component Object Model (COM) components that are used within Active Server Pages (ASP) pages.

Debugging VB COM Components That Are Used in ASP Pages

1. On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0, and then click Microsoft Visual Basic.
2. In Visual Basic, open the COM component project that you want to debug, and set a breakpoint in the location where you want to debug. To do this, click anywhere in the statement where you want to debug. On the Visual Basic Debug menu, click Toggle Breakpoint. Notice that a colored dot appears in the left margin to indicate the breakpoint line. To remove the breakpoint, you can click the dot. To set breakpoints at other lines, you can click the corresponding locations in the margin.
3. Press the F5 key, and run the component within the VB Integrated Development Environment (IDE). If a dialog box prompts you about how to run the component, click Wait for components to be created.
4. Open Internet Services Manager. To open Internet Services Manager in Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0, follow these steps:
   
   
   1. From the Microsoft Windows Start menu, point to Programs, and then click Administrative Tools.
   2. Click Internet Services Manager.
   To open Internet Services Manager in IIS 4.0, follow these steps:
   1. From the Windows Start menu, point to Programs, and then click Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack.
   2. Click Microsoft Internet Information Server.
   3. Click Internet Service Manager.
5. In Internet Services Manager, right-click the virtual directory that contains the ASP page that calls your component, and then click Properties. Under Anonymous Access, click Edit, and set the Directory Security of this virtual directory to anything other than Anonymous.
6. In your Internet browser, run the ASP page that calls the component. The component automatically breaks into the VB project at the breakpoint location.
7. Press the F8 key to debug (step through) your VB component.

Troubleshooting

If you are already running a compiled version of this dynamic-link library (DLL) from this ASP page, you may not hit the breakpoint. In this scenario, you may want to stop and restart Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) services. To do this, on the Windows Start menu, click Run, and then type IISRESET. Please note that this command stops and restarts IIS, as well as all IIS applications that are running.