External Tools in Visual Studio
Visual Studio includes external tools to help you develop and debug your applications. Some of these tools, for example, ATL/MFC Trace Tool and Windows CE Remote Files Viewer, are already available on the Visual Studio Tools menu. Additional tools are available in Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\ or Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\.
You can run these utilities outside the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE), or you can enable them to appear on the Tools menu by using the External Tools dialog box. For more information, see How to: Run External Tools from Visual Studio.
Tools Available Through Shortcuts
The following tools can be found on the Programs menu or All Programs menu in Windows. Click Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, and then click Visual Studio Tools.
Tool |
More Information |
|---|---|
Dotfuscator Community Edition |
Lets you protect your application from reverse engineering. For more information, click Help in the tool. |
MFC-ATL Trace Tool |
|
Visual Studio x64 Cross Tools Command Prompt Visual Studio Command Prompt Visual Studio Itanium Cross Tools Command Prompt |
How to: Enable a 64-Bit Visual C++ Toolset at the Command Line |
Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger Configuration Wizard |
|
SPY++ |
Provides a graphical view of the processes, threads, windows, and window messages of a system. For more information, see Spy++ |
Tools Available on the Visual Studio Tools Menu
The following table lists the tools available by default on the Tools menu in Visual Studio. With the exception of Dotfuscator Community Edition, each of these tools can be found in the \Tools\ folder for Visual Studio.
File Name |
Name |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
GuidGen |
Create GUID |
\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\ |
Generates a GUID, based on specified criteria. For more information, see GUIDGEN Sample: Generates Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). |
Dotfuscator |
Dotfuscator Community Edition |
\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Application\PreEmptive Solutions\ |
Lets you protect your application from reverse engineering. For more information, click Help in the tool. |
ErrLook |
Error Lookup |
\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\ |
Retrieves a system error message or module error message based on the value entered. For more information, see ERRLOOK Reference . |
AtlTraceTool8 |
ATL/MFC Trace Tool |
\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\ |
Displays debug trace messages in the ATL and MFC sources. You can control the type and number of messages displayed. For more information, see ATLTraceTool Sample: Displays Output of ATLTRACE2. |
Spyxx |
SPY++ |
\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\ |
Provides a graphical view of the processes, threads, windows, and window messages of a system. For more information, see Spy++ |
Additional Tools
Additional tools and utilities can be found in the following locations:
Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\
Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\bin\
Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\bin\
Visual Studio installation path\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\PlatformSDK\bin\
See Also
Tasks
How to: Run External Tools from Visual Studio