What are the ASP.NET debug changes made to machine.config when installing Delphi 2005?

When you install Delphi 2005 with the intention of developing ASP.NET applications on IIS you are given the opportunity to allow the install to change your machine.config file in order to support ASP.NET debugging.  Well, during our internet chat session the other day someone asked “What are those settings?”

Well, for Delphi 2005 here is the answer:

Open %systemroot%\Microsoft.net\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG\machine.config using Notepad.

1. Under the element <compilation...> there is a subelement <assemblies> to which you need to add the following:

   <add assembly="Borland.dbkasp, Version=9.0.0.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b0524c541232aae7" />
   

2. Then, search for <httpmodules> element and add:

   <add name="DbgConnect" type="Borland.DbkAsp.DbkConnModule, Borland.dbkasp, Version=9.0.0.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b0524c541232aae7" />>

That's it. Adding those elements will ensure that you can debug ASP.NET applications using Delphi 2005 on IIS. These settings are only required if you are debugging ASP.NET applications running on IIS they are not required for Cassini or any other web server.

Without these settings you will likely see the error message “Unable to attach to ASP.NET worker process (typically aspnet_wp.exe or w3wp.exe)” or something close to it.

We recommend that you either use these settings in machine.config OR in each ASP.NET web application's web.config file but not both. Additionally, you do not want to deploy a web.config file that includes these changes.