How to: Serialize symbol information
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. 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
You can serialize symbols that you must have to analyze your application. Symbol serialization adds symbols to the .vsp file. By adding symbol information to the .vsp file, others can analyze a performance report without having access to the original symbols. If symbols are not serialized, you must have original instrumented .exe and .pdb files to analyze the .vsp file.
To automatically serialize symbol information
On the Tools menu, click Options.
The Options dialog box is displayed.
Click Performance Tools.
Under General Setting, select Automatically serialize symbol information.