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Debugging and Diagnostics - Visual Studio Blog

A unit of profiling makes the allocations go away

September 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023 09/25/23
Nik Karpinsky
In Visual Studio 17.8 Preview 2 we have updated unit test profiling, allowing you to use any of the available tools in the performance profiler – not just the instrumentation tool. With this change, it’s easy to quickly profile small units of work in isolation, make changes, and then remeasure and validate the impact of the change. ...

Elevating Debugging with Auto-decompilation and External Sources

September 6, 2023 Sep 6, 2023 09/6/23
Harshada Hole
Visual Studio has been supporting external sources debugging and decompilation for some time now. However, with the release of Visual Studio 17.7, the debugger took a significant leap forward by introducing Auto-decompilation for .NET libraries making the external code debugging in Visual Studio much more streamlined and effortless. Its ...

Rock Your Debugging Game: Parallel Stack Window Tips You Need to Know!

July 25, 2023 Jul 25, 2023 07/25/23
Harshada Hole
In Visual Studio 2022 17.6 and 17.7 we added a ton of new features in Parallel Stack Window that can take your multithreaded debugging to the next level. But what can the Parallel Stack Window do for you? The answer is simple - it offers valuable insights into how your code functions in multithreaded or parallel or async environments. ...

Improving Visual Studio performance with the new Instrumentation Tool

April 13, 2023 Apr 13, 2023 04/13/23
Nik Karpinsky
Summary With the release of Visual Studio 2022 version 17.6 we are shipping our new and improved Instrumentation Tool in the Performance Profiler. Unlike the CPU Usage tool, the Instrumentation tool gives exact timing and call counts which can be super useful in spotting blocked time and average function time. To show off the tool let’s use...

Visual Studio Toolbox: Debug Threads & Tasks with Parallel Stacks

April 6, 2023 Apr 6, 2023 04/6/23
Leslie Richardson
The Visual Studio Toolbox show helps you become a more productive developer by focusing on tooling in and out of Visual Studio.  Our latest episodes of VS Toolbox (available both on Learn and YouTube) feature Mark Downie and Ramkumar Ramesh from the Visual Studio Diagnostics team. They demonstrate how you can use the Threads and Tasks views ...

Streamlining your Debugging process with Breakpoint Groups

March 21, 2023 Mar 21, 2023 03/21/23
Harshada Hole
Have you ever had a situation when you are debugging a complex scenario with a huge list of breakpoints, and you find yourself scrolling and tapping in the breakpoints windows to disable/enable them individually and repetitively? Then the new Breakpoint Groups feature in Visual Studio may be the answer for you. This feature will allow you ...

Visual Studio 2022 v17.6 Preview 2 is now available

March 14, 2023 Mar 14, 2023 03/14/23
Marian Luparu
Preview 2 for Visual Studio 17.6 is now available! If you are a game developer, a mobile developer, or are interested in learning new tricks to better debug your code, check out this latest release. It’s as easy as upgrading your Preview channel in the Visual Studio installer. And if you haven’t activated your Preview channel for Visual...

Visual Studio 2022 – 17.5 Released

February 21, 2023 Feb 21, 2023 02/21/23
Anthony Cangialosi
We’re excited to announce that Visual Studio 17.5 is now generally available. This release is full of updates that take friction out of your daily workflows making it easier for you stay in the zone while you code. Features like all-in-one search and intent-based suggestions help you move faster, while improved build and debug speeds ensure ...

Choosing a .NET Memory Profiler in Visual Studio – part 1

August 11, 2022 Aug 11, 2022 08/11/22
Clément Habinshuti
Summary Visual Studio provides two great tools for analyzing and diagnosing memory issues in .NET applications: the Memory Usage profiler and .NET Object Allocation Tracking tool. While both tools are useful, it may not be obvious for new user to know which one to use when. This article aims to clarify what each tool is good for and how to ...