Launch

Article
11/15/2016

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

The Launch option starts the profiler using the sampling method and it also starts the specified application.

To use the Launch option, you must specify the Sample method in the Start option.

Syntax

VSPerfCmd.exe /Launch:AppName [Options]

Parameters

AppName
The name of the application to launch. Full and partial paths from the current directory are supported.

Valid Options

The following VSPerfCmd options can be combined with the Launch option on a single command line.

Start: Method
Initializes the command-line profiler session and sets the specified profiling method.

GlobalOn and GlobalOff
Resumes (GlobalOn) or pauses (GlobalOff) profiling, but does not end the profiling session.

ProcessOn: PID and ProcessOff:PID
Resumes (ProcessOn) or pauses (ProcessOff) profiling for the specified process.

TargetCLR
Specifies the version of the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR) to profile when more than one version is loaded in a profiling session. By default, the first loaded version is profiled.

Exclusive Options

The following options can only be used with the Launch option.

Console
Launches the specified command-line application in a new window.

Args: ArgList
Specifies the list of arguments to pass to the application.

LineOff
Disables the collection of line-level profiling data.

Sampling Options

One of the following sampling interval options can be specified on the Launch command line. The default sampling interval is 10,000,000 processor clock cycles.

Timer[:Cycles]PF[:Events]Sys[:Events]Counter[:Name,Reload,FriendlyName]GC[:allocation|lifetime]
Specifies the number and type of sampling interval.

Timer - Samples every Cycles non-halted processor clock cycles. If Cycles is not specified, 10,000,000 cycles are used.
PF - Samples every Events page faults. If Events is not specified, 10 page faults.
Sys - Samples every Events calls to the operating system. If Events is not specified, 10 system calls are used.
Counter - Samples every Reload number of the CPU performance counter specified by Name. Optionally, FriendlyName can specify a string to use as the column header in profiler reports.
GC - Collects .NET memory data. By default (allocation), data is collected at every memory allocation event. When the lifetime parameter is specified, data is also collected at each garbage collection event.

Example

This example demonstrates the use of Launch to start an application.

VSPerfCmd.exe /Start:Sample /Output:TestApp.exe.vsp  
VSPerfCmd.exe /Launch:TestApp.exe