Debugging Visual D using Visual D

Thu Aug 17 23:37:44 PDT 2017

On 18.08.2017 00:14, Johnson Jones wrote:
> On Thursday, 17 August 2017 at 21:18:35 UTC, Johnson Jones wrote:
>> On Thursday, 17 August 2017 at 17:45:35 UTC, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17.08.2017 19:05, Johnson wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2017 at 19:35:19 UTC, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 16.08.2017 21:18, Johnson Jones wrote:
>>>>>> What's strange is that with your changes, privateregistry seems to 
>>>>>> use them... but it still loads the old(I think) visualD because 
>>>>>> when I try the debug the BP's are not hit and the module shows the 
>>>>>> original visualD directory.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Visual D installer adds the extension to the VS installation 
>>>>> ("c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual 
>>>>> Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Rainer 
>>>>> Schuetze\VisualD") so it is immediately available for all users and 
>>>>> suffixes.
>>>>>
>>>>> You can move it to 
>>>>> "%HOME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<id>\Extensions\Rainer 
>>>>> Schuetze\VisualD" to load it only with the version without suffix. 
>>>>> With both the system wide extension and the one in the "Exp" 
>>>>> folder, the extension from the user folder took precedence for me, 
>>>>> though.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you run "devenv /RootSuffix Exp /Log" VS writes a log into 
>>>>> "%APPDATA%\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<id>Exp\ActivityLog.xml" 
>>>>> that also lists detected extensions.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I completely removed the `Extensions\Rainer Schuetze` directories in 
>>>> all visual studio folders that I know of:
>>>>
>>>> C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual 
>>>> Studio\2017\Enterprise\IDE\Extensions
>>>>
>>>> C:\Users\Main\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_4d0b469e
>>>> C:\Users\Main\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_4d0b469eExp
>>>>
>>>> Running visual studio still loads Visual D. It seems that it doesn't 
>>>> even use the visuald.pkgdef.
>>>>
>>>> Obviously I have those entries in the registry. Which it seems it 
>>>> pulls from and either doesn't use the extensions folder at all on my 
>>>> system or is overridden by the registry entries? If that's the case, 
>>>> how can it be worked around? If not, what else might it be?
>>>>
>>>> If visuald.pkgdef is suppose to be what visual studio uses to load 
>>>> visual D as an extension, does it import that in to the registry and 
>>>> then use the registry or does it always use the pkgdef file?(which 
>>>> doesn't seem to be the case, as, again, visual D is loading with 
>>>> visual studio without any of those pkgdef's)
>>>>
>>>> What I'm afraid of is that deleting the registry keys will not do 
>>>> any good, they will just be re-imported by loading the pkgdef(or 
>>>> not, in which case Visual D won't be found at all) and then the main 
>>>> registry keys will be used for the Exp, like it is now.
>>>>
>>>> Basically visual studio is not loading the pkgdef files either at 
>>>> all or only once, or every time but not allow them to overwrite the 
>>>> registry keys, or something else is going on that I can't seem to 
>>>> figure out.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think you are right that VS imports the settings from the pkgdef 
>>> only once, then uses the registry only.
>>>
>>> Maybe try deleting the cache files in 
>>> "%APPDATA%\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_<id>\Extensions".
>>
>> Ok, It seems to be caching. I deleted everything in the main registry 
>> related to visualD and ran visual studio and it was still there!
>>
>> Searched on line and came up with devenv updateconfiguration, reran 
>> VS, and VisualD was no longer there! Ran experimental and it's still 
>> there!
>>
>> Used the same process to remove it from Exp.
>>
>> So, this surely has to be caching, although I removed all the cache 
>> files I could fine from both versions.
>>
>> As of this point there is nothing related to visualD in the registry 
>> nor the VS folders as far as I can tell and both versions are not 
>> finding visualD.
>>
>> I will copy the modified pkgdef file to the exp dir and run it: Did 
>> nothing, Vi sual D didn't load! Copied the original pkgdef, no go.
>>
>> Seems Visual studio is not using the pkgdef in
>>
>> C:\Users\Main\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_4d0b469eExp\Extensions\Rainer 
>> Schuetze\VisualD
>>
>> I put the extensions folder in all the visual studio versions in that 
>> base dir and it didn't help(so it's not using any directory in 
>> C:\Users\Main\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio).
>>
>> Of course, at this point it means something is fubar'ed.
>>
>> I went ahead and installed latest VD so I could get some work done. 
>> Seems like no problem.
>>
>>
>> So either visual studio is not doing what it's suppose to or it has 
>> more cache files laying around that I failed to delete, unless you see 
>> something different?
> 
> [Just me going step by step for reference:
> 
> I should mention that after installing the latest, Visual D also gets 
> installed in the Exp version ;/ so it "magically" propagated to it.
> 
> The evidence seems to point to visual studio simply loading visual D 
> from the system registry and completely bypassing everything else. It 
> doesn't even look at the pkgdef's(or looked at them once and installed 
> them, then uses the registry thereafter).
> 
> Does the visualD installer install registry keys? or just the pkgdef 
> file and then somehow informs VS and then VS does it?
> 
> My guess is that Visual D installs the registry keys, possibly wrong/old 
> way, VS uses the registry always to load them for all versions. One can 
> use pkgdefs but it won't do any good if the values exist in the registry 
> because they seem to take precedence.
> 
> One thing I didn't do because I just thought of it was, after I removed 
> all the registry data and cleared all the caches, was to go to 
> extensions in visual studio and see if I had to enable them... maybe VS 
> scans the pkgdef files and just presents them and one must enable them? 
> So, it might have actually worked when I thought nothing was showing 
> up.  I figured it would show up automatically but I might be wrong about 
> that?
> 
> Let me try again: after deleting registry, running /updateconfiguration. 
> VisualD still exists!!(the opposite of what happened last time) I didn't 
> delete the default pkgdef file though. Doing that fixed and reclearing 
> all the cache file fixed the problem and now visual D isn't showing up!
> 
> So, it seems that it first uses the registry then the pkgdef file. It 
> seems like it doesn't import that in to the main registry since I 
> rechecked, if that's correct then that is good. What it would say is 
> that the visual D installer shouldn't be adding registry keys if it is.
> 
> Now, the test: Copying the pkgdef stuff to the exp install...
> 
> That time it showed up automatically in the exp install. I did use the 
> new version so maybe the rc1 had a problem with the pkgdef or I screwed 
> it up when I edited the first time... Anyways
> 
> What I have now is Visual D in Exp and not in normal. The only pkgdef is 
> in the Exp apps dir.
> ]
> 
> Ok, So I think we've gotten somewhere.
> 
> 1. Install Visual D.
> 2. Remove all registry entries related to it(not sure it this breaks 
> icons and other stuff(or if it all is duplicated in the pkgdef file).
> 3. Move the pkgdef file from the program files visual studio install dir 
> to the appdata local one for each version of VS. Modify them to point 
> them to the VisualD versions one wants to use.
> 4. Run devenv /updateconfiguration on all versions of VS to modify and 
> clear their cache files.
> 
> This should get them to be using the pkgdef files without using the main 
> registry and shouldn't interfer with each other, the way it's suppose to 
> be!
> 
> I've tried it this way 3 times and it seems to work.
> 
> I think you might try to modify the installer to not install reg keys 
> and try to install the extensions in the appdata dir instead of program 
> files, at least for v2017. That seems to be the cleanest way to do it. 
> If someone wants to use a different version they just have to modify the 
> appropriate package to point to it(a find/replace op on one file rather 
> than having to copy a bunch of stuff).
> 
> It seems that having the same data in 3 places is quite confusing and 
> doesn't give the desired results. Of course, it all might have just been 
> some weird issue with my comp. A completely fresh install on a new 
> system would be the best test.
> 

Glad you figured it out. I had to enable Visual D in the extension 
manager when using the local pkgdef.

Visual D installs for all users, so I think just installing into the 
users AppData is not an option. VS 2017 doesn't seem to inspect the "All 
Users" folders.

The installer is not supposed to write to the system registry for VS2017 
related components. I see some bad entries for mago and two entries for 
marshalling some data, though, but they don't seem to have an impact on 
extension detection (IIRC they are needed during build).