What’s New for the Debugger in Visual Studio 2015
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The latest version of this topic can be found at What's New for the Debugger.
For information about everything that’s new in Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 debugging and diagnostics, see Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 Release Notes.
For information about everything that’s new in Visual Studio 2015 RTM debugging and diagnostics, see Visual Studio 2015 Release Notes.
C++ Edit and Continue supports more features. For more information, see Edit and Continue (Visual C++).
For debugging Visual C++ access violations, a new exception dialog specifies the pointer that caused the exception. For more information, please see How Can I Debug an Access Violation? and Improvement to Debugging C++ Access Violations in Visual Studio 2015 Update 1
There are significant UI changes in the Exceptions and Breakpoints UI.
Breakpoints
In Visual Studio 2015 there is a new way to configure breakpoints, which is the Breakpoint Settings window.
Here is a summary of the main Breakpoints windows and hotkeys:
| Feature | Menu Location | Hotkey |
|---|---|---|
| New breakpoint, toggle breakpoint | Debug / Toggle Breakpoint context menu in editor / Insert breakpoint click in left margin | F9 |
| New function breakpoint | Debug / New Breakpoint / Function Breakpoint | In Visual Studio 2015 RTM (with no updates), use ALT + F9, B In Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 and later, use CTRL + B |
| Breakpoints window | Debug / Windows / Breakpoints | CTRL + ALT + B |
| Breakpoint Settings, Conditions | context menu on the breakpoint / Conditions | ALT + F9, C |
| Breakpoint Settings, Actions | context menu on the breakpoint / Actions | No hotkey |
For more information, see the following articles:
Exception Settings
The new Exception Settings window allows you to specify the kind of exception handling you want for single exceptions or categories of exceptions.
| Feature | Menu Location | Hotkey |
|---|---|---|
| Exception Settings window | Debug / Windows / Exception Settings | CTRL + ALT + E |
For more information, see the following articles:
Edit and Continue
In Visual Studio 2015, you can set Edit and Continue in the Tools / Options / Debugging / General page. In previous versions, these settings were in a separate options category.
Attach to Process
In Visual Studio 2015 the Attach to Process command is available only from the Debug menu. In previous version it had been available from the Tools menu as well. The CTRL + ALT + P hotkey works in all versions.