Microsoft offers the developer a variety of ways to debug a Windows Store application. Two for the local development machine which we will not go further into and one to debug the application on another device. Debugging remotely has many advantages for the developer to get a feeling on how his app reacts to a tablet or how well it performs on an ARM processor.
To enable remote debugging on a device one must install the Remote Debugger which can be downloaded from Microsoft under Additional software/ Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2012. There is a Version for each available platform e.g. x86, x64 and ARM. Once installed on the device launch the app by selecting its tile on the start screen and ensure your device is connected to the same network as your development machine.
Now back in Visual Studio 2012, and select the Remote option. On the first time you will be prompted with a menu where if not restricted by IT your device will show up in the same subnet. You can also try to connect to your device by entering the IP address manually.
Now select the start button or just hit F5 and your app will start to compile for the wanted platform. During the start of each remote debugging session you will have to enter your device login. After the app has been deployed it will automatically start up on your device.
Depending on your network the app will run a bit slow because the IDE is attached to the process so don’t worry if everything suddenly feels utterly slow it’s due to network latency.
Nest to debugging your app with breakpoints it is even possible to do performance analysis which may lead you onto the one or other bottleneck on low power ARM devices.
If you want to connect with your project to either another device or the IP of the device as change you can set it again by opening the properties of your start up project and adjust the IP under Debug.
