How to: Install the Stand-Alone Profiler
Visual Studio provides a command line based stand-alone profiler that can be run without installing the Visual Studio IDE. This situation occurs when a computer does not or cannot have a development environment installed. For example, you should not install a development environment on a production Web server.
To install the stand-alone profiler
Locate and run the stand-alone profile installer (vs_profiler.exe) in the Standalone Profiler\x86 or \x64directory at the root of the Visual Studio Team System installation media.
Add the paths for vsinstr.exe and msdis150.dll to the system path.
Note
In the default installation of Visual Studio, vsinstr.exe and msdis150.dll are located in \Program Files\Visual Studio 9\Team Tools\Performance Tools.
At the command prompt, type VSInstr.
Note
If the usage information for vsinstr.exe is displayed, everything is set up correctly. If you see an error that states vsinstr.exe or one of its dependencies is not found, make sure that you have your paths set up correctly as described in step 2.
Set up symbol server by setting your _NT_SYMBOL_PATH variable to symsrv*symsrv.dll*c:\localcache*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
After you set up your symbol server by using the system environment variables, run the command line profiler tools at a new command prompt. This allows the new environment variables to take effect. From the command-line window, type:
start %COMSPEC%
Note
For detailed instructions about how to set up symbol server package, see How to: Reference Windows Symbol Information.
Use the VSPerfReport tool to serialize your symbols into the profiling data (.vsp) file. Use the VSPerfReport /summary:all /packsymbols switches. If you do not have symbols inserted in your data file, make sure that you have the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable set.
See Also
Tasks
Walkthrough: Command-Line Profiling Using Sampling
Walkthrough: Command-Line Profiling Using Instrumentation
How to: Reference Windows Symbol Information