Running WcfTestClient Tool in a PC without VS.Net 2008

I copy the article contents here for my personal backup purpose only. The article copyright belongs to the original author. Please refer to http://weblogs.asp.net/guillermo/archive/2009/02/23/info-running-wcftestclient-tool-in-a-pc-without-vs-net-2008.aspx

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 2008 comes with a tool to test our WCF services called WcfTestClient, you can run it from "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\WcfTestClient.exe". But what happens if you need to run this tool to test a WCF Service in a PC that don’t have Microsoft Visual Studio .Net 2008 installed?

Well, you simply need to copy the listed files from the next path "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\":

• SvcUtil.exe

• SvcUtil.exe.config

• WcfSvcHost.chm*

• WcfSvcHost.exe

• WcfSvcHost.exe.config

• WcfTestClient.chm*

• WcfTestClient.exe

• WcfTestClient.exe.config

*Files marked with an asterisk are optional.

But if you run the app shows you the next error:

Assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.VirtualTreeGrid, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f7f11d50a3a was not found. Reinstall the assembly or Visual Studio. The application cannot continue and will exit.

And now you need to add to the previous files the next file that resides in the GAC:

• Microsoft.VisualStudio.VirtualTreeGrid.dll

Maybe you’re thinking right now … hmm? How I can get a file from the GAC? … It’s easy!

Press the Windows Key + R, and then the Run Window appears, just copy the next path:

%windir%\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.VisualStudio.VirtualTreeGrid\

… and you will find a folder with the VirtualTreeGrid assembly inside. Copy this file to the same folder where the other files resides and you are ready to use WcfTestClient from a PC that don’t have Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Installed.

UPDATED April 27, 2009:
You can download all the files here.