How to keep the console window open in Visual C++?

Question

Start the project with Ctrl+F5 instead of just F5.

The console window will now stay open with the Press any key to continue . . . message after the program exits.

Note that this requires the Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE) linker option, which you can enable as follows:

1. Open up your project, and go to the Solution Explorer. If you're following along with me in K&R, your "Solution" will be 'hello' with 1 project under it, also 'hello' in bold.
2. Right click on the 'hello" (or whatever your project name is.)
3. Choose "Properties" from the context menu.
4. Choose Configuration Properties>Linker>System.
5. For the "Subsystem" property in the right-hand pane, click the drop-down box in the right hand column.
6. Choose "Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE)"
7. Click Apply, wait for it to finish doing whatever it does, then click OK. (If "Apply" is grayed out, choose some other subsystem option, click Apply, then go back and apply the console option. My experience is that OK by itself won't work.)

CTRL-F5 and the subsystem hints work together; they are not separate options.

(Courtesy of DJMorreTX from http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vcprerelease/thread/21073093-516c-49d2-81c7-d960f6dc2ac6)

The standard way is cin.get() before your return statement.

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    cout << "Hello World";
    cin.get();
    return 0;
}

Put a breakpoint on the return line.

You are running it in the debugger, right?

Another option is to use

#include <process.h>
system("pause");

Though this is not very portable because it will only work on Windows, but it will automatically print

Press any key to continue...

For makefile projects, the accepted solution fails, due to a bug in Visual Studio (which is present at least up until version 2012 - I haven't yet tested 2013). This bug is detailed here.

In order to have the console pause after program termination on a makefile project, perform these steps (this may differ for versions other than 2010 - 2012):

1) Pass /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE to the linker. - EDIT: see below.

2) Open your project file (.vcxproj) in a text editor.

3) Inside the root <project> tag, insert the following:

<ItemDefinitionGroup>
  <Link>
    <SubSystem>Console</SubSystem>
  </Link>
</ItemDefinitionGroup>

4) Reload the project in your solution.

5) Run the program without debugging (CTRL + F5).

EDIT:

As per my comment below, setting the linker option /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE is actually irrelevant for makefile projects (and not necessarily even possible, if you are using a compiler other than MSVC). All that matters is that the setting is added to the .vcxproj file, as per step 3 above.

You can use cin.get(); or cin.ignore(); just before your return statement to avoid the console window from closing.

just put a breakpoint on the last curly bracket of main.

    int main () {
       //...your code...
       return 0;
    } //<- breakpoint here

it works for me, no need to run without debugging. It also executes destructors before hitting the breakpoint so you can check any messages print on these destructors if you have any.