Improving speed while running under the debugger

  • Article

If stepping in the debugger is taking too long, here are a few suggestions on improving your experience:

  1. Close any Windows that you don't need. The modules Window and disassembly Window are good candidates if you have them open.
  2. If you are 'mixed' debugging (Native and .NET code at the same time), try switching to Native or .NET. Mixed is much slower then either option by itself.
  3. If your code causes a lot of debugger events, this will slow it down whenever it is run under the debugger. Here are the common debugger events:
    • Loads/unloads of dlls or assemblies
    • Create/destroy app domains
    • Create/destroy threads
    • Throw/catch exceptions
  4. Make sure the watch windows aren't evaluating some expensive function