Is there a good Valgrind substitute for Windows?

Question

I was looking into Valgrind to help improve my C coding/debugging when I discovered it is only for Linux - I have no other need or interest in moving my OS to Linux so I was wondering if there is a equally good program for Windows.

What kinds of debugging are you looking to do? Valgrind is quite a rich toolset, and the answers below point in all kinds of directions. With an emphasis on memory leak/allocation debugging. — jakobengblom2, Aug 28 '09 at 08:43
Maybe you can test the code on a virtual Linux machine inside your Windows, just when you need to check it. you can share the development folder between the virtual and non-virtual machine. that is, if the code is portable enough. — Liran Orevi, Oct 01 '09 at 09:27

Lailin Chen · Answer 1 · 2011-07-05T10:53:22.353

As jakobengblom2 pointed out, valgrind has a suit of tools. Depending which one you are talking about there are different windows counter parts. I will only mention OSS or free tools here.

1. MemCheck:

Dr. Memory. It is a relatively new tool, works very well on Windows 7. My favorite feature is that it groups the same leaks' allocation stacks in the report.

http://code.google.com/p/drmemory/

I have also used UMDH( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/268343 ) and found it quiet useful and easy to setup. It works from Win2000 to Win7.

AppVerifier is a must have swissknife for windows native code developers, its "memory" checker does similar job http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371695%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

2. Callgrind:

My favorite is verysleepy ( http://www.codersnotes.com/sleepy ) It is tiny but very useful and easy to use.

If you need more features, AMD CodeAnalyst™ Performance Analyzer is free: http://developer.amd.com/documentation/videos/pages/introductiontoamdcodeanalystperformanceanalyzer.aspx

Windows Performance Analysis tools is free from Microsoft, not very easy to use but can get the job done if you are willing to spend the time. http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/sasha/archive/2008/03/15/xperf-windows-performance-toolkit.aspx Download: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc752957

3. Massif:

Similar(not quite exact match) free tools on windows are:

VMMap from sysinternals : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd535533

!heap command in windbg : http://hacksoflife.blogspot.com/2009/06/heap-debugging-memoryresource-leak-with.html

4. Cachegrind:

Above mentioned Windows Performance Tools has certain level of L2 cache miss profiling capability but not quite as good and easy to use as Cachegrind.

5. DRD:

Haven't found anything free and as powerful on Windows yet, the only free tool for windows I can find that is slightly close is the "lock" checker in AppVerifier: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371695%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

There's also [gperftools (formerly Google PerfTools)](http://code.google.com/p/gperftools/). It's not a valgrind replacement (what is really) but it has a new malloc, cpu profiler, heap profiler and checker. Worth a look as it's support on Linux and Windows (inc Mingw) and other unices. — alexr, Feb 13 '12 at 17:29

score 31 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 31 '10 at 19:41

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Why not use Valgrind + Wine to debug your Windows app? See http://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_and_Valgrind

(Chromium uses this to check the Windows version for memory errors; see build.chromium.org and look at the experimental or memory waterfalls, and search for wine.)

There's also Dr. Memory, see dynamorio.org/drmemory.html

answered Jan 31 '10 at 19:41

Dan Kegel

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Because then you wouldn't be debugging a Windows app - you'd be debugging a Linux app. – John Dibling Feb 04 '10 at 21:15
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No need to recompile in Wine. Just transfer your .exe and .pdb over to a Linux box. And you wouldn't be debugging a Linux app; you're debugging your exact Windows app. – Dan Kegel Feb 14 '10 at 03:42

score 29 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 05 '09 at 17:19

29

Some more good commercial tools:

answered Jan 05 '09 at 17:19

orip

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Purify: venerable but still useful, as shown by how many changes of corporate ownership it has survived! – Norman Ramsey Jan 05 '09 at 17:48
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Insure++ takes forever to instrument your code, and forever to execute your code at runtime. – C.J. Aug 09 '10 at 15:12

score 15 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 20 '12 at 14:58

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For Visual C++, try Visual Leak Detector. When I used it, it detected a memory leak from a new call and returned the actual line in source code of the leak. The latest release can be found at http://vld.codeplex.com/.

edited Mar 20 '12 at 14:58

Andreas Haferburg

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answered Aug 30 '09 at 13:16

tgs_stdio

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It does not seem to work for me. I even tried creating a simple project that did basically nothing other than to allocated some memory and not free it. VLD did not detect it. :-| – Synetech Aug 25 '10 at 00:18
@Synetech inc. I had the same problem in VS2010... Using the newest version of VLD solved my problem – relaxxx Apr 07 '11 at 16:46

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 13:59

i would like to list some tool , hope will be useful

read this article for more detail

Purify
Bounds Checker
Coverity (basically its a code analyzer but, it will catch memory leak in static )
Glow Code
dmalloc
ccmalloc
NJAMD
YAMD
Valgrind
mpatrol
Insure++

score 14 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 05 '09 at 16:40

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Development environment for Windows you are using may contain its own tools. Visual Studio, for example, lets you detect and isolate memory leaks in your programs

answered Jan 05 '09 at 16:40

dmityugov

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It is of very little practical use. It will log the filename/linenumber for offending allocations, but it's only informative if you call malloc directly. When using new/delete, it will unhelpfully pinpoint new.h as the "offending" code. – user9665 Apr 09 '09 at 10:33
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It works correctly for me, pointing the right line even new/delete are used. – Rodrigo Apr 22 '09 at 18:33
But will it work if a library function allocates? E.g. strdup. – Alex Budovski Dec 14 '09 at 06:21
The Debug CRT, which is what you are trying to describe is useful for C code. Getting it to work for C++ code is more problematic. – C.J. Aug 09 '10 at 15:11
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Valdrind does a _lot_ more then find memory leaks, I mainly use it to find use of freed and uninitialized stack and heap memory which can be incredibly hard to debug otherwise. – ideasman42 Aug 10 '11 at 09:28
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@user9665 Visual Leak Detector (http://vld.codeplex.com) provide full callstack for each memory leak with minimal souce code changes. Check example on site – KindDragon Apr 19 '12 at 22:59

score 13 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 28 '09 at 01:16

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Try DUMA

answered Aug 28 '09 at 01:16

Diaa Sami

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score 12 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 09 '09 at 05:37

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There is Pageheap.exe part of the debugging tools for Windows. It's free and is basically a custom memory allocator/deallocator.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286470

answered Apr 09 '09 at 05:37

Pageheap/gflags have helped me get to the bottom of some nasty heap corruption problems. – the_mandrill Jun 23 '10 at 10:51
I found `gflags` + `gdb` (from mingw) helpful in diagnosis. – Jarekczek Oct 30 '12 at 21:05

score 8 · Answer 9 · edited Aug 02 '12 at 23:49

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In combination with Visual Studio I generally use Visual Leak Detector or simply _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks() which is a win32 api call. Both are nothing fancy but they get the job done.

edited Aug 02 '12 at 23:49

JPaget

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answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:45

Jasper Bekkers

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score 6 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:50

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I had the chance to use Compuware DevPartner Studio in the past and that was really good, but it's quite expensive. A cheaper solution could be GlowCode, i just worked with a 5.x version and, despite some problems in attaching to a process i needed to debug, it worked quite well.

answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:50

Manuel

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Expensive yes. It paid back in one weekend, just using the profiler piece. – EvilTeach Jan 05 '09 at 20:16

score 6 · Answer 11 · answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:58

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I've been loving Memory Validator, from a company called Software Verification.

answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:58

stevex

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score 5 · Answer 12 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

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Viusual Studio can help detecting memory leaks itself. See Microsoft Visual C++ Tips and Tricks -> "Memory Leaks" section. See also this post in SO

Although real tracing is only possible with the Team Edtion of Visual Studio.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

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answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:16

fmuecke

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score 4 · Answer 13 · answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:53

See the "Source Test Tools" link on the Software QA Testing and Test Tool Resources page for a list of similar tools.

I've used BoundsChecker,DevPartner Studio and Intel V-Tune in the past for profiling. I liked V-Tune the best; you could emulate various Intel chipsets and it would give you hints on how to optimize for that platform.

grigy · Answer 14 · 2011-02-06T14:13:19.897

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How about the Purify?

edited Feb 06 '11 at 14:13

answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:04

grigy

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Not really free... but I guess you could find a test license for testing purposes. – David Rodríguez - dribeas Oct 01 '09 at 09:07
Dead link as of 2011-02-04 for BoundsChecker. – dwj Feb 04 '11 at 22:15

Agnel Kurian · Answer 15 · 2010-03-03T09:47:17.510

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Does Jochen Kalmbach's Memory Leak Detector qualify?

PS: The URL to the latest version is buried somewhere in the article's comment thread.

edited Mar 03 '10 at 09:47

answered Mar 03 '10 at 09:42

Agnel Kurian

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score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Apr 19 '10 at 11:38

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LeakDiag, UMDH, App Verifier, DebugDiag, are all useful tools to improve robustness of code and find memory leaks.

answered Apr 19 '10 at 11:38

Alex Budovski

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score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Jul 02 '10 at 07:08

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The Boost Test library can detect memory leaks.

answered Jul 02 '10 at 07:08

zr.

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score 3 · Answer 18 · answered Feb 21 '12 at 19:57

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Try Intel's Inspector XE product which can help you detect both memory and threading issues: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-inspector-xe/

answered Feb 21 '12 at 19:57

Alexey Alexandrov

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score 2 · Answer 19 · edited Nov 11 '12 at 06:49

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I found this SF project today:

http://sourceforge.net/p/valgrind4win/wiki/Home/

They are porting valgrind to Windows. Probably in several years we will have a reliable valgrind on windows.

edited Nov 11 '12 at 06:49

David L.

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answered Jun 05 '12 at 09:17

Calmarius

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score 2 · Answer 20 · answered Jul 15 '09 at 22:04

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If you are developing with Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero C++ Builder, you could use CodeGuard.

answered Jul 15 '09 at 22:04

Vince

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score 2 · Answer 21 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:32

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More or less all Profilers include checking for memory leaks and show you the stack when the memory was allocated.

I can recommend Intels Parallel Inspector. Simple to use and no recompilation needed. The trial version runs for 30 days.

GlowCode and AtromatedQA also include such capabilites. They all offer free trials.

Compuware DevPartner (aka BoundsChecker) in Contrast needs a slowed down "instrumentation" recompile and the application also runs slower when checking for errors. And BoundsChecker can not work with 64 Bit evsrions at all. We gave up on that tool.

answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:32

RED SOFT ADAIR

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I'd defintitely recommend glowcode. I've used it in the past to find an memory leak within a dll being called by my app. – Bob Oct 01 '09 at 09:35
There were complaints of major slowdowns while using DevPartner at my last workplace. They do everything to avoid using it because of how slow it would be. – Calyth Oct 01 '09 at 12:44

score 2 · Answer 22 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 10:23

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The best tool I ever used is DevPartner BoundsChecker - it's not free but it has an evaluation period.

answered Oct 01 '09 at 10:23

Dror Helper

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score 2 · Answer 23 · answered Apr 02 '10 at 13:57

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Another memory tool for your list: Memory Validator.

Not free, but nowhere near as expensive as Purify or Boundschecker.

answered Apr 02 '10 at 13:57

Stephen Kellett

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score 2 · Answer 24 · answered Aug 09 '10 at 14:15

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If you're not afraid of mingw, here are some links (some might work with MSVC)... http://betterlogic.com/roger/?p=1140

answered Aug 09 '10 at 14:15

rogerdpack

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score 2 · Answer 25 · edited Feb 27 '09 at 21:02

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Perhaps CodeSnitch would be something you're after? http://www.entrek.com/codesnitch.html

edited Feb 27 '09 at 21:02

GEOCHET

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answered Jan 05 '09 at 15:56

Alex Fort

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Ira Baxter · Answer 26 · 2011-06-12T21:06:25.357

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We are just completing a Memory Safety checking tool for Windows, that handles GCC and Micrsoft Visual C (not C++ yet), and are looking for Beta testers.

EDIT June 12, 2011: Not Beta anymore, now production for GCC and Microsoft Visual Studio C.

edited Jun 12 '11 at 21:06

answered Apr 06 '11 at 10:56

Ira Baxter

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score 1 · Answer 27 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

Clang supports the Address Sanitizer plugin (-faddress-sanitizer option), which can pretty much detect most bugs that Valgrind can find (does not support detection of uninitialised memory reads and memory leaks yet though). See this page for a comparison against Valgrind and other similar tools. An official Windows port is currently in progress, see Windows ASan port.

I attempted to build it myself on Windows a couple of months ago and gave up, see my related question. Things may have changed for the better now if you want to give it another go.

score 1 · Answer 28 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

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Check out this question: Is there a good Valgrind substitute for Windows? . Though general substitute for valgrind is asked, it mainly discusses memory leak detectors and not race conditions detections.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

Community

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answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:07

maykeye

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score 1 · Answer 29 · edited Oct 08 '09 at 16:48

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Definitely Purify! I've used that to analyze some massive code bases (>3,000 kSLOC) and found it to be excellent.

You might like to look at this list at Wikipedia.

By the way, I've found memwatch to be useful. Thanks Johan!

edited Oct 08 '09 at 16:48

GEOCHET

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answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:11

Rob Wells

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score 1 · Answer 30 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 09:42

I used Insure++ which does excellent job in finding c++ memory leaks/corruptions and many other bugs like uninitialized variables, pointer errors, strings etc., It also does visual "Code coverage" and run time memory usage etc.. which give more confident on your code.. You can try it for trail version..

score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 11:41

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You might want to read what Mozilla is doing regarding memory leaks. One tool in their toolbox is the Hans Boehm garbage collector used as memory leak detector.

answered Oct 01 '09 at 11:41

Cristian Adam

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score 1 · Answer 32 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 12:15

You can give a try to RuntimeChecker trial ot to IBM Purify trial..

A free solution would be to use the following code in Visual Studio:

#ifdef _DEBUG
#define new DEBUG_NEW
#endif

Just write this in the top of all your cpp files. This will detect memory leaks of your application whenc stopping debug run and list them in the output window. Double clicking on a memory leaks line will higlight you the line where memory is allocated and never released. This may help you : http://www.flipcode.com/archives/How_To_Find_Memory_Leaks.shtml

score 1 · Answer 33 · answered Oct 01 '09 at 18:20

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The user-mode dump heap (UMDH) utility works with the operating system to analyze Windows heap allocations for a specific process. That's a pretty good tool for free from Microsoft. Here is a mini tutorial "How to use Umdh.exe to find memory leaks".

answered Oct 01 '09 at 18:20

Kirill V. Lyadvinsky

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score 1 · Answer 34 · answered Mar 15 '10 at 10:36

The free tool DebugDiag will help find memory and handle leaks.

You don't need to augument your program for DebugDiag to work.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=28BD5941-C458-46F1-B24D-F60151D875A3&displaylang=en

Although it is not the easiest or most intuitive program to use! Make sure you google for tutorials and instructions on how to use it.

Ricky Lung · Answer 35 · 2011-07-21T03:38:42.480

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You can take a look to the article Design and Implementation of an In-Game Memory Profiler in the book "Game Programming Gems 8".

It shows how to implement a low overhead semi-intrusive real-time memory profiler, source code provided in the CD-ROM.

enter image description here

edited Jul 21 '11 at 03:38

answered Jul 21 '11 at 03:33

Ricky Lung

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score 0 · Answer 36 · answered Aug 09 '12 at 11:25

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Finding Memory leak in C++ Application on Windows

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Avinash

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score 0 · Answer 37 · answered Feb 06 '11 at 16:58

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Just an idea, you could also implement a memory allocator and track all calls to malloc and free. However this might be too much for some projects.

answered Feb 06 '11 at 16:58

adrian

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That's how most games do it. But it's a huge undertaking and a lot of instrumentation. – Crashworks Nov 29 '11 at 08:59

score 0 · Answer 38 · answered Apr 05 '11 at 20:31

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Parasoft Insure++ has always been reliable:

http://www.parasoft.com/jsp/products/insure.jsp?itemId=63

answered Apr 05 '11 at 20:31

Is there a good Valgrind substitute for Windows?

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