Visual Studio 2008: how to pause the running program to see a variable value?

Question

I have started a long loop, and i dont want to start it over (been running 3 hours now, i calculated it to run only 1 hour instead), and i am afraid that my program is working incorrectly because its taking so long. I was too stupid to actually output any state values for myself (i didnt think it would take 3 damn hours).

So, is there some way to spy one specific variable value while the program was launched from visual studio in "Release" mode?

Answer 1

What you want to do is attach to the running process

• Load the solution which represents the project
• Tools -> Attach to Process
• Select the running process and hit attach
• Hit the Pause Button on the IDE to stop the process or set a break point

At this point you will be broken in the debugger and able to inspect the running program