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attach by processId fails on windows due to removed wmic.exe #1721
Description
Version: Debugger for Java 0.60.0
With the August 2026 update wmic.exe was finally removed from Windows after being deprecated for some years. src/processTree.ts still uses wmic.exe to fetch the process list.
Attaching to a running Java process either by picking a process or by processId now fails.
An alternative is this powershell script:
Get-CimInstance Win32_Process | ForEach-Object { "$($_.CommandLine) $($_.ParentProcessId) $($_.ProcessId)" }
Activity
issuelens commentedon Oct 26, 2026
Thanks for the clear report. The current Windows path in
src/processTree.tsstill launchesSystem32\wbem\WMIC.exeto enumerate processes, so systems where WMIC has been removed cannot build the process tree used by process-picker andprocessIdattachment. This confirms the failure is in the extension-side Windows process enumeration rather than the debug server or target JVM. We did not find an existing issue with matching technical details across the configured Java-tooling repositories. The suggestedGet-CimInstance Win32_Processapproach is useful input for the maintainer investigation.wmic removal microsoft#1721
wenytang-ms commentedon Oct 28, 2026
Thanks for reporting this. As a workaround, please attach directly to the JVM’s debug port instead of using
processIdor the process picker. This avoids the dependency on WMIC.Add this configuration to
.vscode/launch.json, replacing5005with your JVM’s actual JDWP port:{ "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "type": "java", "name": "Attach to Java (port 5005)", "request": "attach", "hostName": "127.0.0.1", "port": 5005 } ] }The target JVM must have JDWP enabled. Please let us know whether this works for you.