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Getting Visual Studio Debugger running on latest build (10586) of Windows 10 IoT

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The latest build 10586 of Windows 10 IoT doesn't have the VS debugger running. 

The Windows 10 IoT Core image from build 10586 is designed to work with Visual Studio Update 1 (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2015/11/30/visual-studio-update-1-rtm.aspx), which will deploy the debugger as part of app deployment (this can be leveraged by selecting Universal authentication).

For more information about build 10586, see http://www.windowsondevices.com.  For more information about deploying apps with build 10586, see the Hello World sample: http://ms-iot.github.io/content/en-US/win10/samples/HelloWorld.htm.

If you are not using Visual Studio Update 1, I have found a workaround to get it running.

Steps are simple:

  1. Make sure you dont wipe your Raspi SD card 10556 build.
  2. Rename the flash.ffu in c:\Program files (x86)\Microsoft Iot\FFU\RaspberryPi2\ to flash10556.ffu to prevent it from getting overwritten while installing the latest build.
  3. Install the latest build from the ISO. Now you should have the newer flash.ffu. Dont flash it yet. 
  4. Switch to your RasPi2 and Copy over C:\RDBG\ folder from the 10556 build of  Windows 10 IoT to local machine
  5. Flash the latest build of Windows 10 IoT on the SD card. Get it running. 
  6. Access the c$ share and Copy the RDBG folder to C:\ running the latest build.
  7. Use the Web UI -> process -> Run command and run the below command:
    c:\RDBG\RegisterOneCoreRdbg.cmd
  8. Reboot the Raspi
  9. Use the Web UI -> process -> Run command and run the below command:
    c:\RDBG\StartOneCoreRdbg.cmd
  10. Verify that msvsmon is now running using processes Web UI.

Now, you can connect, deploy and debug apps as earlier using Visual Studio. The raspi will NOT appear in the list when you search from VS. We just need to use the IP address to deploy and debug.

Update 20/11/2015:

For some reason, after a day I was not able to deploy apps. I wiped the SD card and this time just copied the RDBG folder while setup was still in progress and some how the debugging got enabled by default and I'm able to deploy apps thru Visual Studio. I will retry this and provide updates.

Update 4/12/2015:
confirmed that the steps 7 to 10 may not be needed. Just copying the RDBG folder and rebooting is sufficient.