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Debug Build Versus Release Build

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When you create a new Visual C++ project, both a Win32 Debug and a Win32 Release version are automatically created with default options set for each.

Version Default Values
Win32 Debug Full symbolic debugging information in Microsoft format

No optimization (optimization generally makes debugging more difficult)
Win32 Release No symbolic debugging information

Optimized for maximum speed

You can change the debug default options, for example, to output line numbers only, to generate a mapfile, or to redirect output.