I have used JetBrains dotTrace and Redgate ANTS extensively. They are fairly similar in features and price. They both offer useful performance profiling and quite basic memory profiling.
dotTrace integrates with Resharper, which is really convenient, as you can profile the performance of a unit test with one click from the IDE. However, dotTrace often seems to give spurious results (e.g. saying that a method took several years to run)
I prefer the way that ANTS presents the profiling results. It shows you the source code and to the left of each line tells you how long it took to run. dotTrace just has a tree view.
EQATEC profiler is quite basic and requires you to compile special instrumented versions of your assemblies which can then be run in the EQATEC profiler. It is, however, free.
Overall I prefer ANTS for performance profiling, although if you use Resharper then the integration of dotTrace is a killer feature and means it beats ANTS in usability.
The free Microsoft CLR Profiler (.Net framework 2.0 / .Net Framework 4.0) is all you need for .NET memory profiling.
2011 Update:
The Scitech memory profiler has quite a basic UI but lots of useful information, including some information on unmanaged memory which dotTrace and ANTS lack - you might find it useful if you are doing COM interop, but I have yet to find any profiler that makes COM memory issues easy to diagnose - you usually have to break out windbg.exe
.
The ANTS profiler has come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years, and its memory profiler has some truly useful features which now pushed it ahead of dotTrace as a package in my estimation. I'm lucky enough to have licenses for both, but if you are going to buy one .Net profiler for both performance and memory, make it ANTS.
The registry is the official way to detect if a specific version of the Framework is installed.
Which registry keys are needed change depending on the Framework version you are looking for:
Framework Version Registry Key
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\.NETFramework\Policy\v1.0\3705
1.1 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v1.1.4322\Install
2.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727\Install
3.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\Setup\InstallSuccess
3.5 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5\Install
4.0 Client Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Client\Install
4.0 Full Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full\Install
Generally you are looking for:
"Install"=dword:00000001
except for .NET 1.0, where the value is a string (REG_SZ
) rather than a number (REG_DWORD
).
Determining the service pack level follows a similar pattern:
Framework Version Registry Key
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{78705f0d-e8db-4b2d-8193-982bdda15ecd}\Version
1.0[1] HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{FDC11A6F-17D1-48f9-9EA3-9051954BAA24}\Version
1.1 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v1.1.4322\SP
2.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727\SP
3.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\SP
3.5 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5\SP
4.0 Client Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Client\Servicing
4.0 Full Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full\Servicing
[1] Windows Media Center or Windows XP Tablet Edition
As you can see, determining the SP level for .NET 1.0 changes if you are running on Windows Media Center or Windows XP Tablet Edition. Again, .NET 1.0 uses a string value while all of the others use a DWORD.
For .NET 1.0 the string value at either of these keys has a format of #,#,####,#. The last # is the Service Pack level.
While I didn't explicitly ask for this, if you want to know the exact version number of the Framework you would use these registry keys:
Framework Version Registry Key
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{78705f0d-e8db-4b2d-8193-982bdda15ecd}\Version
1.0[1] HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{FDC11A6F-17D1-48f9-9EA3-9051954BAA24}\Version
1.1 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v1.1.4322
2.0[2] HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727\Version
2.0[3] HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727\Increment
3.0 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\Version
3.5 HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5\Version
4.0 Client Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Version
4.0 Full Profile HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Version
[1] Windows Media Center or Windows XP Tablet Edition
[2] .NET 2.0 SP1
[3] .NET 2.0 Original Release (RTM)
Again, .NET 1.0 uses a string value while all of the others use a DWORD.
Additional Notes
for .NET 1.0 the string value at either of these keys has a format of #,#,####,#
. The #,#,####
portion of the string is the Framework version.
for .NET 1.1, we use the name of the registry key itself, which represents the version number.
Finally, if you look at dependencies, .NET 3.0 adds additional functionality to .NET 2.0 so both .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0 must both evaulate as being installed to correctly say that .NET 3.0 is installed. Likewise, .NET 3.5 adds additional functionality to .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0, so .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and .NET 3. should all evaluate to being installed to correctly say that .NET 3.5 is installed.
.NET 4.0 installs a new version of the CLR (CLR version 4.0) which can run side-by-side with CLR 2.0.
Update for .NET 4.5
There won't be a v4.5
key in the registry if .NET 4.5 is installed. Instead you have to check if the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full
key contains a value called Release
. If this value is present, .NET 4.5 is installed, otherwise it is not. More details can be found here and here.
Best Answer
Please check following overviews:
Microsoft .NET Micro Framework Tools & Resources
Production Modules Comparison Table
I personally like the Thaoe-II and ChipworX most, for old .NET MF version I was really happy with the Digi ConnectME.