What's the difference between a "release" and a "master" in VS?

Question

"Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows" allows me to compile debug, release or master. While the difference between debug and release is known, I've never heard of a master compilation option. What does it do different from release?

Answer 1

The "master" configuration is from Unity, as you stated in your comment and it is used to submit your app to the Store and to remove profiler support.

There are three build configurations you can choose from. Debug should obviously be used to debug your scripts. Release optimizes code for better performance. Master configuration build should be used to submit your app to the Store. It has profiler support stripped out.

For more information, see Building and deploying a Unity Visual Studio solution (HoloLens)

Answer 2

No, the term "master" never appears in any of the project templates in VS2013 as a solution configuration name. The ones that ship with Express will only ever generate a Release and Debug configuration. Visible in the Build + Configuration dialog, upper left combobox.

It is not entirely impossible that you are using a project template created by somebody else, Visual Studio makes that very simple with File + Export Template. Adding a configuration with a different name is certainly possible but it is unguessable what this programmer intended it to mean. Bit of a stretch, Express does not support customizations like this.

The only place where the term "master" ever appears in standard project templates are in Web applications. Where the "master page" is a template design from which all the other pages in the web application are generated. Pretty useful, it helps to create a consistent look-and-feel in the web site design. That however has nothing to do with solution configurations