SYSK 250: How To Start ASP.NET Development Server Without Visual Studio
Since the introduction of the file system based web projects, the developers life has been greatly improved… That is unless you have to do a demo, or have other reasons why you don’t want to run Visual Studio in the background. So, your options are:
- Convert it to an HTTP based web site and use IIS
- Figure out the magic Visual Studio does to run it without IIS
As it turns out, option #2 is not that difficult. Visual Studio simply uses WebDev.WebServer.exe process as a host and listener of your requests (the executable can be found in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 folder).
To start it, use the following command:
start /B WebDev.WebServer [/port:<port number>] /path:<physical path> [/vpath:<virtual path>]
For example:
start /B webdev.webserver.exe /port:4955 /path:"c:\Projects\YourWebSite" /vpath:/
That’s it…
