How to attach a process when activating or deactivating features from command prompt.

This is bit tricky one as often we have some feature receiver class with the feature and we want to debug it .

When we activate the feature through UI (ie from the site features) we attach the w3p process and debug the feature receiver code but this does not happen while doing the same from command prompt

So for this follow these steps :

1) Type the command to activate the feature in command prompt :

Stsadm –o activatefeature –name “feature name” –url

2) As soon u press enter , press Pause button from the keyboard.

There should not be any delay in these two actions as this is very fast process .

3) Now go to the solution in visual studio and attach the “stsadm” process from attach process tab

4) Now come to command prompt and press any key to resume the process.

Now you can debug the feature receiver code

So your job is done.

Enjoy!!!