Advanced Compiler Settings Dialog Box (Visual Basic)

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Use the AdvancedCompiler Settings dialog box of the Project Designer to specify the project's advanced build-configuration properties. This dialog box applies to Visual Basic projects only.

To access this dialog box

  1. In Solution Explorer, choose a project node (not the Solution node).

  2. On the Project menu, click Properties. When the Project Designer appears, click the Compile tab.

  3. On the Compile Page, Project Designer (Visual Basic), select the Configuration and Platform. In simplified build configurations, the Configuration and Platform lists are not displayed. For more information, see Debug and Release Project Configurations.

  4. Click Advanced Compile Options.

    Note

    Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Personalizing the IDE.

Optimizations

The following options specify optimizations that can in some cases make a program file smaller, make a program run faster, or speed up the build process.

Remove integer overflow checks By default, this check box is cleared to enable integer overflow checking. Select this check box to remove integer overflow checking. If you select this check box, integer calculations might be faster. However, if you remove overflow checking and data type capacities overflow, incorrect results might be stored without an error being raised.

If overflow conditions are checked and an integer operation overflows, an OverflowException exception is thrown. If overflow conditions are not checked, integer operation overflows do not throw an exception.

Enable optimizations By default, this check box is cleared to disable compiler optimizations. Select this check box to enable compiler optimizations. Compiler optimizations make your output file smaller, faster, and more efficient. However, because optimizations cause code rearrangement in the output file, compiler optimizations can make debugging difficult.

DLL base address This text box displays the default DLL base address in hexadecimal format. In Class Library and Control Library projects, you can use this text box to specify the base address to be used when the DLL is created.

Generate debug info Select None, Full, or pdb-only from the list. None specifies that no debugging information be generated. Full specifies that full debugging information be generated, and pdb-only specifies that only PDB debugging information be generated. By default, this option is set to Full.

Compilation Constants

Conditional compilation constants have an effect similar to that of using a #Const preprocessor directive in a source file, except that constants defined are public and apply to all files in the project. You can use conditional compilation constants together with the #If...Then...#Else directive to compile source files conditionally. See Conditional Compilation.

Define DEBUG constant By default, this check box is selected, specifying that a DEBUG constant be set.

Define TRACE constant By default, this check box is selected, specifying that a TRACE constant be set.

Custom constants Enter any custom constants for your application in this text box. Entries should be delimited by commas, using this form: Name1="Value1",Name2="Value2",Name3="Value3".

Other Settings

Generate serialization assemblies This setting specifies whether the compiler will create XML serialization assemblies. Serialization assemblies can improve the startup performance of XmlSerializer if you have used that class to serialize types in your code. By default, this option is set to Auto, which specifies that serialization assemblies be generated only if you have used XmlSerializer to encode types in your code to XML. Off specifies that serialization assemblies never be generated, regardless of whether your code uses XmlSerializer. On specifies that serialization assemblies always be generated. Serialization assemblies are named TypeName.XmlSerializers.dll.

See Also

Compile Page, Project Designer (Visual Basic)