Run External Programs in Microsoft Visual Studio Express edition

I was using the Visual Studio Express edition for my development works. During one of such occasion, I was required to check a piece of code which is called from an application. I thought the use the “Run External Programs” feature available in Visual Studio. I did not found the option and after searching, I found that it is available only in Full version of Visual studio. I searched for the solution on the net, but did not found any. I checked the files and found an option to run the same.

 

Below is the step as how you can run the external programs in Visual Studio –.

• Close the Solution /Project from the visual studio and go to the folder where you have saved this project. Look for the folder with the project name file that is generated along with the “*.SLN” (solution file). Refer the below screen shot. 

• Open the above .USER file and add the below XML tag. 

           <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
                  <StartAction>Program</StartAction>
                  <StartProgram>C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe<Your starting application path></StartProgram>

           </PropertyGroup>
          Now save and close the file.

• Open the project in Visual Studio and run it. Your external program will run.

Hope the above information helps you. If you have any queries, you can reach me at aby_no1@rediffmail.com