To monitor IIS applications, Windows services, or standalone applications, install the AppDynamics .NET Agent once on each machine that hosts managed .NET applications. At startup, the agent initializes an individual instance of itself for each application running in the CLR.

This page describes a new installation for the .NET Agent using the MSI package.

Installation Overview

  1. Prepare to Install.

  2. Install the agent.

  3. Configure the agent.

  4. Restart instrumented applications.

    • For Microsoft IIS, the configuration utility provides an option to restart IIS or not.

    • If you do not restart IIS, monitoring does not begin until the next time IIS restarts.

    • You must restart Windows services and standalone applications manually.

Prepare to Install

Review these requirements before you install the .NET Agent:

  • You must enable Windows Management Instrumentation service on the machine where you are installing the .NET Agent, and the service must be running.
  • To run the .NET Agent and the Machine Agent on the same machine, you must enable .NET Compatibility Mode on the Machine Agent. See .NET Compatibility Mode.

Install the .NET Agent

  1. Download the MSI installer package from the AppDynamics Download Center.
  2. Run the MSI installer package.
  3. Read the End User Agreement and click to accept. Then, click Next.
  4. (Optional) On the Confirm location panel, change the .NET Agent installation directories, including:

    • Destination directory for the .NET Agent executables and supporting files.
    • Parent directory for local data including agent configuration files and log files.
    See .NET Agent Directory Structure for the default directories.


    You can also change the destination of the logs directory later using the AppDynamics Agent Configuration utility.

  5. On the User Account Control panel, click Yes to allow the installer to make changes to the computer. If the current account does not have administrator privileges, the installer prompts you to supply the password for an administrator account.
  6. Wait for the installation to complete.
  7. For new installs, AppDynamics recommends you launch the AppDynamics Agent Configuration utility.

If you encounter problems installing, see Troubleshoot .NET Agent Issues

Configure the .NET Agent

Launch the AppDynamics Agent Configuration utility to configure the .NET Agent.