I’ve been writing a c# program for the last couple weeks and the text build just got its final signoff. I published it via visual studio, sent the installer package to my client, and it simply does not work on their computers. I’ve installed the exact same binary on theirs that I have on my own for the sake of testing. It is a program that starts with a series of pop-up windows, and after the final pop-up, the program simply closes rather than bringing up mainwindow. I understand that without access to my source and my clients’ computer troubleshooting is impossible, but frankly I don’t even know where to begin with this one. Could I get some suggestions on what things to look at? We’re both running Windows 7, and while I have the 64 bit edition I don’t think that should make a difference, especially since the program starts running.
Any advice on where to start looking?
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My solution depends on a custom control library which does not appear until the this.Show() command that (I’m guessing) the program fails at. Is there a way to check if that’s somehow not being included but, since it was built on my computer, the reference is working there? I ask because the publish button just names my project and not the solution as a whole, though when I build it works fine on my computer and the project has the library set as a dependency in its dependencies.
I would suggest that you take a look at the Windows Event Viewer. Most likely, it contains some useful information about the crash. Also, It is possible to remote debug your application as it is explained in the How to: Set Up Remote Debugging. This is what I would do. Also, try to catch all exceptions raised in your application by subscribing to the Application.UnhandledException and AppDomain’s UnhandledException events. This will allow you to obtain the callstack.