Visual Studio: Advanced Debugging Tools

Course details

Want to get more out of your Visual Studio debugging sessions? In this course, take a look at several powerful tools and features that can help you pinpoint problems in your application code. Instructor Walt Ritscher details how to leverage IntelliTrace, which captures and archives debugging sessions, allowing you to replay and analyze those sessions later to find elusive bugs. Walt also covers the Diagnostics window, which provides an interactive view of application performance metrics; how code maps help you visualize the relationships between .NET types and type members; how to analyze memory usage with the Diagnostics Tools window; and how to debug multithreaded code. Plus, get several helpful debugging tips, including how to use the new function breakpoint feature to have Visual Studio autogenerate breakpoints for a specified function during a debugging session.

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Discover the advanced debugger tools
02 - What you should know
03 - How to access the GitHub code

1. IntelliTrace

04 - A quick look at the Diagnostics window
05 - A quick look at the IntelliTrace tools
06 - What you should know
07 - Understand the iTrace files
08 - Choosing what to save in iTrace files
09 - View function calls in historical debugging
10 - View snapshots in historical debugging
11 - View IntelliTrace exceptions
12 - View UI messages
13 - View other events
14 - View IntelliTrace timeline

2. Work with an iTrace File

15 - Save an iTrace file while debugging
16 - Archive PDB files for each version
17 - Configure debug symbols path
18 - Open iTrace file for recent build
19 - Change source and PDB for older build
20 - Diagnose problems after deployment

3. Use Diagnostics and Visualizer Window

21 - Configure the CPU monitor
22 - Analyze CPU usage with Diagnostics tools
23 - Analyze CPU usage with Profiler
24 - View CPU usage by function
25 - Configure memory monitor
26 - Analyze memory usage with Diagnostics tools
27 - Analyze memory usage with Profiler
28 - View memory details

4. Debug Multithreaded Code

29 - Debug multithreaded code
30 - Run the sample application
31 - Examine the sample application code
32 - Overview of the thread debug windows
33 - Debug with the Threads window
34 - See worker threads in the Threads window
35 - Show threads icons in the source editor
36 - Debug with the parallel watch
37 - Identify threads with custom names and Flags
38 - View the Thread call stack
39 - Examine the modified code for Parallel Stack
40 - Use the Parallel Stack window
41 - Conditional breakpoints from Thread ID
42 - Freeze and thaw threads

5. Interactive Code Maps

43 - Install code maps feature
44 - Enable code maps
45 - Save the code map file
46 - Open and debug with the code map file
47 - Navigate call stack in code map
48 - Add comments and flags to code map
49 - Change code map layout
50 - Enhance code map with type containers
51 - Complete the map by adding all type members

6. Debugging Tips

52 - Multiple breakpoints with Inline Breakpoints
53 - Enhance debug sessions with DebuggerDisplay attribute
54 - Recursive debugging with Parallel Watch window
55 - Add breakpoints to all overloads with function breakpoints
56 - Use debug commands to create lists of debug data

Conclusion

57 - What's next

Visual Studio: Advanced Debugging Tools

Authors

Walt Ritscher