.net - VS 2010 IDE 2GB limit

Question

I am using VS 2010 on a win 7 64 bit system with 8 GB of memory. My application is 32 bit. While in the VS 2010 .Net IDE, the app shows up in the Windows task manager as "MyApp.vshost.exe *32" while the VS IDE itself shows up as "devenv.exe *32".

I checked and it appears that the VS 2010 IDE file (devenv.exe) is complied with the /LargeAddressAware flag.

However, when debugging large models, the IDE fails with an Out of memory exception. In the Windows Task manager, the "MyApp.vshost.exe *32" process indicates about 1400 MB of memory usage (while the "devenv.exe *32" process is well under 500 MB). Is it possible to set the "MyApp.vshost.exe *32" process to be /LargeAddressAware in order to avoid this out of memory situation? If so, how can this be done in the IDE. While setting the final application binary to be /LargeAddressAware would work, I still need to be able to debug the app in the IDE with these type of large models. I should also note that my app has a deep object hierarchy with many collections that together required a lot of memory. However, my issue is not related to trying to create say 1 large array that requires greater then 2 GB of memory etc.

I should note that I am able to run the same app in the VB6 IDE and not get an out of memory situation as long as the VB6 IDE is made /LargeAddressAware. In the case of VB6, the IDE and the app being debugged are part of the same process (and not split into 2 as is the case with VS 2010.) The VB6 process can be larger then 3 GB without running into out of memory issues.

Ultimately, my objective is to have my app run completely in 64 bit to access more memory. I am hoping that in such cases, the IDE will allow the debugging process to exceed 2 GB without crashing (and certainly more then 1.4 GB as is the current case). However, for now, while 95% of my app is 64 bit, I am calling a legacy COM 32 bit DLL and as such, my entire app is forced to still run in 32 bit mode until I replace that DLL.

Answer 1

the IDE fails with an Out of memory exception

No, your program fails with that exception, not the IDE. You'd have to run editbin.exe in a post build event to set the flag:

set path=%path%;$(devenvdir);$(devenvdir)....vcin
editbin /largeaddressaware $(targetpath)

That will not work on the vshost.exe version, you'll have to turn off the hosting process. Project + Properties, Debug tab.