Memory Leak tools for Windows-7 (64-bit) & VC++ 2008 ???

[scumpyt]

I know that there are previous posts on this subject, but I have exhausted most of those suggestions, and am hoping that SOMEBODY has something new to offer me.

I have had Micro Focus / DevPartner / BoundsChecker installed for a year now, and have had NOTHING but problems with it. It has caused more frustration than it has cured. I'm done!

I spoke with the Purify guys about a year ago, and they said they did support Windows-7 (but it wasn't stable yet), nor did they really support Visual Studio 2008. I have an email into them to see if this has changed.

We tried to use something called LeakWatcher (which is very similar to the "Visual Leak Detector" suggestion, in that it makes use of the Windows CRT stuff), but it intrusive, it wasn't very satisfying, and didn't give us much help with 3rd party libs.... Sigh!!!

I used valgrind on unix/linux in the past, and it worked MUCH better than that, and it was free also...

I also used Purify on Sun's (perhaps 20 years ago), and it worked tremendously! It wasn't very intrusive, and it didn't slow down your executable much at all, and it gave you very reliable, useful results.

THOSE are the types of tools I'm looking for...

Does anybody have any new suggestions???

[Guest]

This doesn't have anything to do with Qt, I suggest the C++ Gurus section instead.

Also, if Valgrind works under VM you can install some Linux distro and connect to the VM as if it is a real machine and use Valgrind remotely.

[mlong]

Moved to C++ Gurus.

[steno]

In terms of memory leaks, you don't need a fancy third party library.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/e5ewb1h3(v=vs.80).aspx

[scumpyt]

Thanks steno, but I have already tried the windows CRTdbg stuff...
I was hoping for for something more...

[steno]

So, you tried it and did it work?

[giesbert]

This CRTdbg stuff finds some memory leaks, but not all. But it's a good starting point :-)
Me personally, I use Purify on windows, or FindLeak, which are both commercial tools.

[steno]

[quote author="Gerolf" date="1329408246"]This CRTdbg stuff finds some memory leaks, but not all.[/quote]

I would be curious if you know of an example where the crtdbg fails.

[scumpyt]

Thanks guys... I hadn't heard of FindLeak yet... I'll have a look at that!

[giesbert]

[quote author="steno" date="1329408638"]
[quote author="Gerolf" date="1329408246"]This CRTdbg stuff finds some memory leaks, but not all.[/quote]

I would be curious if you know of an example where the crtdbg fails.[/quote]

Try to find COM memory leaks with CRTdbg, as it is not allocated by the msvcrt dll, it's in the kernel ;-).
So stuff like new is typically found, that's correct.

[goetz]

A list of such tools is on the "Tools for Profiling and Memory Checking":/wiki/Profiling-and-Memory-Checking-Tools page in the wiki.

[scumpyt]

Volker, thanks for that. I didn't know that was there.

I found out through my searches that the PurifyPlus suite of tools is supposed to finally support Windows-7, so I am going through the motions of doing an eval...

Has anybody else had any experience with this stuff on Windows-7 (64-bit, but 32-bit applications), Visual Studio-2008 and with or without QT??? Any feedback positive or negative would be welcome.

[TioRoy]

scumpyt,

Recently we had problem here to detect leak memory in a big project.

We use WinDbg only.

• Running gflags.exe to instruct mscrt to "Create user mode stack trace database":

@gflags.exe /i <exe> +ust@

• Run the application and attach to EXE or

• Creating a memory dump during the execution of application

With the dump file, you can check the heap, searching for leaks (busy memory)

WinDbg has many commands, but we use basically these:

!heap -s
(to summarise the heap allocation table)
!heap -stat -h <heap handle>
( show usage stats of handle - show by allocation size)
!heap -flt s <size>
(filter to show the allocations of size especified)
!heap -p -a <addr>
(shows details of allocation - with stacktrace)

Note: you need the PDB files to WinDbg get the correct symbol information about youe application.

You can take information about WinDbg:

http://windbg.org/ (check the symbol server settings in page)
http://windbg.info/doc/1-common-cmds.html (check item 20)

You can use the new SDK from Microsoft (Windows 8 Consumer Preview) to install WinDbg. It has less bugs (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463009)

The interface of WinDbg is weird. But it help me a lot.

[KeithS]

If you want some good tools for e.g memory leak checking, performance profiling, code coverage checking, thread checking etc. on Windows, look no further than:

http://www.softwareverify.com

I have no connection to these guys, just a happy customer for several years now. The thing I like about them is:

• you don't have to make ANY changes to your code to use them.
• they present the results graphically in an intelligent way, something that cannot ever be said for e.g. valgrind.
• they are relatively inexpensive.
• if you get a problem their developers are quick to respond.
• they work. Need I say more?

[Nepal]

Valgrind has no competitors!
Hi! I have a similar question. Guru advised many different debuggers. A few of them are really effective. But most of them do not do their job well. Now my work computer was installed deleaker, Not a bad debugger, but the program is paid :( This is a minus

[Macro]

Sorry for erasing my previous comment. I just made a small mistake. Hope i will not continue it again.

[scumpyt]

Riz, can you tell us where you find the Valgrind tool for Windows? Is it the in-development version from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/valgrind4win/
or somewhere else. If it IS this sourceforge version, how stable is it?

Thanks in advance...

[Macro]

You have to use "Wine and Valgrind.":http://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_and_Valgrind . Check this Link for more updates...

[Macro]

This can also be Useful "Good Valgrind Substitute for Windows":http://stackoverflow.com/questions/413477/is-there-a-good-valgrind-substitute-for-windows

[Nepal]

I have heard about wine! It seems that this is not a bad tool!