WCF Test Client

Two things that should’ve been there since WCF v1.My colleague Alex Thissen already blogged about the WCF Library projects and the service host that comes with it. In beta 2 there’s a new test client that’ll connect to your service and will show you the available operations, configuration and allows you to invoke the operations.

WCFTestClient

When you take a look at the properties of your service library, you’ll notice that under the “Debug” tab page, a command line argument has been added: /client:”WcfTestClient.exe”. This allows it to start and connect to your service.

After a default installation, this client will crash upon connecting to your service. That’s because svcutil.exe isn’t signed in Beta 2, as you can read here and here. Unfortunately both bloggers don’t tell you where you can find svcutil. You can find it right here:

C:Program FilesMicrosoft SDKsWindowsv6.0abin

Open the Visual Studio 2008 command prompt, browse to that folder and delay sign it by executing the following command:

sn.exe -Vr svcutil.exe

Now both Service Util and the WCF Test Client work.