You can profile any .NET application that runs .NET Framework 1.1 or newer:
- Standalone .NET applications
- ASP.NET applications
- .NET Windows services
- .NET DCOM objects
- ... and others
Profiling is supported on Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista, 32-bit and 64-bit (AMD64) .NET Frameworks
Profiling can be done locally (profiler and profiled application run on same machine) or remotely (profiled application runs on another computer accessible by network).
To profile your application, launch "YourKit Profiler for .NET" from the Start menu.
To profile a .NET application, profiling should be enabled from the Welcome screen (see below).
Only those applications can be profiled which were started with one of 'Enable Profiling' levels selected.
If an application starts when 'Disable profiling' is selected, you won't be able to profile it.
(1) YourKit Profiler for .NET uses three level of profiling:
- Enable Profiling - this is recommended level. It enables all profiling capabilities.
- Enable profiling except for CPU tracing - this level is available for applications running .NET 2.0 or newer. Choose this level to reduce profiling overhead to a minimum. CPU tracing will not be available. Only CPU sampling will be available for performance profiling.
- Disable Profiling - all .NET application will run without profiling.
(2) In some cases, it also may be useful to launch the application with CPU profiling already started. To enable CPU profiling from the application startup use "Edit application startup options" hyperlink on the Welcome screen. This feature requires .NET 2.0 or newer.
(3) When profiling is enabled, each .NET application will start with profiler unless you specify otherwise and describe a list of applications that should not start with profiling. By default, the list contains Visual Studio, MSDN Explorer and other standard applications.
When profiling is enabled, simply start the application you wish to profile the way you usually do.
After that, connect to the profiled application to obtain profiling results.
Note for ASP.NET applications: If your ASP.NET application runs in Internet Information Services (IIS), IIS should be restarted after profiling is enabled. Click "File | Profile ASP.NET Application" to restart IIS from within the profiler UI. After IIS is restarted, the profiler UI will automatically connect to the profiled application as soon as the application receives first request, e.g. as soon as you open its page in your browser.