General, Debugging, Options Dialog Box

To access the General page, open the Tools menu and choose Options. In the Options dialog box, expand the Debugging node and choose General. This page lets you set the following general debugging options:

• Ask before deleting all breakpoints
  Requires confirmation before completing the Delete All Breakpoints command.

• Break all processes when one process breaks
  Simultaneously breaks all processes to which the debugger is attached, when a break occurs.

• Break when exceptions cross AppDomain or managed/native boundaries
  In managed or mixed-mode debugging, the common language runtime can catch exceptions that cross application domain boundaries or managed/native boundaries when the following conditions are true:

  1) When native code calls managed code by using COM Interop and the managed code throws an exception. See Introduction to COM Interop (Visual Basic).

  2) When managed code running in application domain A calls managed code in application domain B and the code in application domain B throws an exception. See Programming with Application Domains.

  3) When code calls a function by using reflection, and the function throws an exception. See Reflection in the .NET Framework.

  In 2) and 3), the exception is sometimes caught by managed code in mscorlib instead of the common language runtime. This option does not affect breaking on exceptions caught by mscorlib.

• Enable address-level debugging
  Enables advanced features for debugging at the address level (the Disassembly window, the Registers window, and address breakpoints).

• Show disassembly if source is not available
  Automatically shows the Disassembly window when you try to debug code for which source is unavailable.

• Enable breakpoint filters
  Enables you to set filters on breakpoints so that they will affect only specific processes, threads, or computers.

• Enable the Exception Assistant
  For managed code only. When this option is selected, managed exceptions open the new Exception Assistant dialog box instead of the old Exception dialog box. Exception Assistant is more verbose and provides better help on exceptions. See Exception Assistant.

• Unwind the call stack on unhandled exceptions
  Causes the Call Stack window to roll back the call stack to the point before the unhandled exception occurred.

• Enable Just My Code (managed only)
  When this feature is enabled, the debugger displays and steps into user code ("My Code") only, ignoring system code and other code that is optimized or that does not have debugging symbols. See Restrict stepping to Just My code

• Show all members for non-user objects in variables windows (Visual Basic only)
  Turns on display of non-public members in objects that are in non-user code (not "My Code").

• Warn if no user code on launch
  When debugging starts with Just My Code enabled, this option warns you if there is no user code ("My Code").

• Enable .NET Framework source stepping
  Allows the debugger to step into .NET Framework source. Enabling this option automatically disables Just My Code .NET Framework symbols will be downloaded to a cache location. You can change the cache location in the Options dialog box, Debugging category, Symbols page.

• Step over properties and operators (managed only)
  Prevents the debugger from stepping into properties and operators in managed code.

• Enable property evaluation and other implicit function calls
  Turns on automatic evaluation of properties and implicit function calls in variables windows and the QuickWatch dialog box.

• Call string conversion function on objects in variables windows (C# and JavaScript only)
  Executes an implicit string conversion call when evaluating objects in variables windows. Therefore, that result is displayed as a string instead of the type name. Only applies while debugging in C# code. This setting may be overridden by the DebuggerDisplay attribute (see Using DebuggerDisplay Attribute).

• Enable source server support
  Tells the Visual Studio debugger to get source files from source servers that implement the SrcSrv (srcsrv.dll) protocol. Team Foundation Server and and the Debugging Tools for Windows are two source servers that implement the protocol. For more information about SrcSrv setup, see the Debugging Tools for Windows documentation. In addition, see Specify Symbol (.pdb) and Source Files in the Visual Studio Debugger.

  Security Note
  Because reading .pdb files can execute arbitrary code in the files, make sure that you trust the server.

• Print source server diagnostic messages to the Output window
  When source server support is enabled, this setting turns on diagnostic display.

• Allow source server for partial trust assemblies (Managed only)
  When source server support is enabled, this setting overrides the default behavior of not retrieving sources for partial trust assemblies.

• Highlight entire line for breakpoints and current statement
  When the debugger highlights a breakpoint or current statement, it highlights the entire line.

• Require source files to exactly match the original version
  Tells the debugger to verify that a source file matches the version of the source code used to build the executable you are debugging. If the version does not match, you’ll be prompted to find a matching source. If a matching source is not found, the source code will not be displayed during debugging.

• Redirect all Output window text to the Immediate window
  Sends all debugger messages that would ordinarily appear in the Output window to the Immediate window instead.

• Show raw structure of objects in variables windows
  Turns off all object structure view customizations. For more information about view customizations, see Displaying Custom Data Types.

• Suppress JIT optimization on module load (managed only)
  Disables the JIT optimization of managed code when a module is loaded and JIT is compiled while the debugger is attached. Disabling optimization may make it easier to debug some problems, although at the expense of performance. If you are using Just My Code, suppressing JIT optimization can cause non-user code to appear as user code ("My Code").

• Warn if no symbols on launch (native only)
  When selected, displays a warning dialog box when you try to debug a program for which the debugger has no symbolic information. See No Symbolic Information Dialog Box.

• Warn if script debugging is disabled on launch
  When selected, displays a warning dialog box when the debugger is launched with script debugging disabled.

• Load DLL exports
  When selected, loads DLL export tables. Symbolic information from DLL export tables can be useful if you are working with Windows messages, Windows procedures (WindowProcs), COM objects, or marshaling, or any DLL for which you do not have symbols. Reading DLL export information involves some overhead. Therefore, this capability is turned off by default.

  To see what symbols are available in the export table of a DLL, use dumpbin /exports. Symbols are available for any 32-bit system DLL. By reading the dumpbin /exports output, you can see the exact function name, including non-alphanumeric characters. This is useful for setting a breakpoint on a function. Function names from DLL export tables might appear truncated elsewhere in the debugger. The calls are listed in the calling order, with the current function (the most deeply nested) at the top. For more information, see dumpbin /exports..

• Show parallel stacks diagram bottom-up
  Controls the direction in which stacks are displayed in the Parallel Stacks window.

• Ignore GPU memory access exceptions if the data written didn’t change the value
  Ignores race conditions that were detected during debugging if the data didn’t change. For more information, see Debugging GPU Code.