Not many people seem to know this, but this is perfectly possible, though I admit it’s not very obvious.
Here’s what you do:
- suppose your current project is A, and it’s output is c:\bin\my.exe
- add an empty project to the solution for A, call it ‘Dummy’
- under Dummy’s Project Properties->Debugging set the Command to point c:\bin\my.exe
- under Solution Properties->Configuration Manager, uncheck all builds of the Dummy project so VS won’t try to build it (building an empty project fails)
- under Solution Properties->Startup Project, select Multiple Startup Projects and set the Action for both A and Dummy to Start
- now hit F5 and your exe will be launched twice, each under a seperate debugging instance. (as you will be able to see in the Debug->View->Processes window)