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"Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows" allows me to compile debug, release or master. While the difference between debug and release is known, I've never heard of a master compilation option. What does it do different from release?

Jehof
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o0'.
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  • I don't have visual studio 2013 but on past projects that I have joined, master builds were usually built with all optimizations, profiled and had no form of debugging info in them (unless we ran into an issue with the master build itself), maybe the practice carried over. – phoenixstew Nov 26 '13 at 12:44

2 Answers2

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The "master" configuration is from Unity, as you stated in your comment and it is used to submit your app to the Store and to remove profiler support.

There are three build configurations you can choose from. Debug should obviously be used to debug your scripts. Release optimizes code for better performance. Master configuration build should be used to submit your app to the Store. It has profiler support stripped out.

For more information, see Building and deploying a Unity Visual Studio solution (HoloLens)

Efreeto
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Jehof
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  • Nice find! Silly me I didn't mention Unity in the original post, but I had no idea it could do such a thing! – o0'. Nov 26 '13 at 13:23
  • @Lohoris no problem, if you have mentioned Unity before, i think Hans Passant would have provided you the correct answer – Jehof Nov 26 '13 at 13:25
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No, the term "master" never appears in any of the project templates in VS2013 as a solution configuration name. The ones that ship with Express will only ever generate a Release and Debug configuration. Visible in the Build + Configuration dialog, upper left combobox.

It is not entirely impossible that you are using a project template created by somebody else, Visual Studio makes that very simple with File + Export Template. Adding a configuration with a different name is certainly possible but it is unguessable what this programmer intended it to mean. Bit of a stretch, Express does not support customizations like this.

The only place where the term "master" ever appears in standard project templates are in Web applications. Where the "master page" is a template design from which all the other pages in the web application are generated. Pretty useful, it helps to create a consistent look-and-feel in the web site design. That however has nothing to do with solution configurations

Hans Passant
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  • I do have VS Express 2013 and it _does_ allow me to "create or edit" the configurations, via a "Configuration Manager" window. I've freshly installed VS and used it only with solutions created by Unity, is it possible that embedded in a solution there is such a new configuration option? – o0'. Nov 26 '13 at 13:17
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    You clearly should have mentioned "Unity" before. It has a concept of a game server, the MasterServer class supports it. I suspect that's relevant. I see no relevant hits in the Unity reference beyond [this page](http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/net-MasterServerBuild.html). – Hans Passant Nov 26 '13 at 13:24
  • You're right. I didn't mention it because I had no idea that a solution could add configuration options. – o0'. Nov 26 '13 at 13:25