how to keep Immediate Window open

Question

I've got a program that is dumping a bunch of debug information to the Immediate Window. I would like to be able to look over those debug outputs after closing the program, but the Immediate window also closes.

Is there a way to keep the Immediate window open, or at least move the output to somewhere that doesn't disappear?

Regards,
Greg

Answer 1

The Immediate Window isn't designed for "output" messages. The Immediate window is a CLI that allows you to adjust the behavior of your application (such as setting new values, calling functions, etc) while your app is stopped in the debugger. Once the debugger stops the immediate window has no context.

By default output messages don't go here. But I suspect you have enabled the Redirect all Output Window text to the Immediate Window option in the Debugging \ General options in VS. I don't know why you would ever do this but perhaps you have a scenario where it makes sense. Nevertheless the output should be going to the Output window. Open the Output window (which remains open even if the debugger is stopped) and see if your output is also there. If it is then use that window as that is what it is designed for. If the output doesn't show up then uncheck the aforementioned option in the debugger options and then run your app again and it should show up.