Quick Tip: "Save Analyzed" for large VSP files

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One cool new feature in the Visual Studio 2008 Profiler is the ability to take a large VSP file that has been analyzed once and save the report data into a VSPS file (Visual Studio Profiler Summary files).  Saving the analyzed data has several major benefits:

    1. The analyzed data is orders of magnitude smaller than the VSP file.  We've seen 4GB trace VSPs get compressed into less than 100K VSPS files.
    2. Because the data saved in the VSPS files has already been processed by our data analyzer, it will load up much faster. 
    3. Symbol data is automatically packed into the VSPS file.

VSPS files because of their small size, quick analysis, and saved symbols are perfect for use as saved baselines with the new performance comparison functionality in VS2008.  A best practice is to regularly save off VSPS files for your performance scenarios so you can look for performance regressions from one milestone to the next.

This feature is not particularly discoverable.  Here's a quick map of where to find it (highlighted in yellow):

SaveAnalyzed

One caveat: because the data has already been analyzed in the VSPS file, you can't use filters on VSPS files.

[Steve Carroll - scarroll]