Tip: VS2008 – Finding and Setting Properties (Right-Click)

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The Visual Studio Profiler has many properties and options and this tip shows you where to find most of them. Future posts may cover some of the specific properties in more detail.

 

Performance Session: session_properties  Select an existing Performance Session in the Performance Explorer to see properties in the Properties Window. If the Properties Window is hidden:  Press ‘F4’ or go to ‘View->Properties Window’.   Performance Report: report_properties Select a Performance Report in the Performance Explorer to view many properties including Collection, ETW, General, Machine Information, Performance Counters, Process, Thread and Version Information.

 

Performance Session Properties (and Options):

session_properties_1 To adjust Performance Session properties:
  1. Right-click on the Performance Session (Performance1 in this example).
  2. Select ‘Properties’.

 

Properties for Performance1 are shown below. There are different categories of properties on the left (e.g. General, Launch, Sampling, …).
session_properties_2

Performance Targets:

target_properties_1 To adjust Performance Target properties:
  1. Right-click on the Target (ConsoleApplication3 in this example).
  2. Select ‘Properties’.

 

Adjust the properties for the Performance Target as required. These properties do not often need to be changed, with the possible exception of the Instrumentation property ‘Exclude small functions from instrumentation’.

target_properties_2

Tools –> Options –> Performance Tools:

Some global options can be configured using the Visual Studio Options dialog, which is accessed via:
Tools –> Options –> Performance Tools

tools_options

That’s all the properties I can think of but I’m probably missing some still. Probably the most important aspect to this tip is to emphasize that right-clicking with the mouse is often the way to access important contextual information.

[Colin Thomsen]