Profiling in Visual Studio 2008 PRO

Question

How do I use the profiler in Visual Studio 2008?

I know theres a build option in Config Properties -> Linker -> Advanced -> Profile (/PROFILE), however I can't find anything about actauly using it, only articles I was able to find appear to only apply to older versions of Visual Studio (eg most say to goto Build->Profile to bring up the profile dialog box, yet in 2008 there is no such menu item).

Is this because Visual Studio 2008 does not include a profiler, and if it does where is it and where is the documentation for it?

Beefwood

Answer 1

The profiler is only available in the Team System editions of Visual Studio 2008. The last version that I used that included a profiler was Visual C++ 6.0.

For Visual Studio 2005, you could try Compuware DevPartner Performance Analysis Community Edition.

Damnatory

Supposedly Visual Studio 2010 will have a SKU priced below Team System that will include their new profiling tools (including a nice parallel profiler) – Comprehend

Answer 2

Microsoft has released stand-alone Profiler for VS 2008 here

Fondue

OK, I downloaded, installed and got it to work. How do I view vsp files? – Quantify

Quote from page: "A full installation of Visual Studio 2008 with profiling support must be used to view the generated performance reports." – Tremblay

See codeka.com/blogs/index.php/2009/03/21/… on how to view results using Excel/CSV. – Tremblay

Answer 3

There was also a list of .NET profilers in the What Are Some Good .NET Profilers question.

Loanloanda

Answer 4

As I understood from reading a few sites, when you use VS 2008 stand alone profiler to create .vsp files, you will need either VS2008 Premium or Ultimate to view .vsp files.

By the way, I installed VS2012 Release candidate which is available for free (trial version?) and I can use its profiling engine.

Estaestablish