Knowledge Base

(version 5) Support for profiling Silverlight applications

Category: Troubleshooting & error messages
Date: 20 Jul 2010
Product: ANTS Memory Profiler
Versions: 3,4,5
There is no option in ANTS Profiler to profile a Silverlight application.

ANTS Profiler can profile any .NET application hosted in the .NET Common Language Runtime. Although Silverlight code can be written in the C# and VB .NET languages, it cannot be profiled because the client-end of the Silverlight application that runs in a user's browser does not implement the entire .NET CLR, but rather a lightweight version that is isolated from the actual runtime installation. This "lightweight" runtime does not implement the Microsoft code profiling interface, and therefore ANTS Profiler cannot instrument the Intermediate Language code running inside.

Microsoft does plan to implement a profiling process in Silverlight version 4, so we are currently evaluating the feasibility of adding support for Silverlight applications if and when this is implemented in Silverlight.

NOTE: Silverlight profiling is available in ANTS Performance Profiler v6. Support for Memory profiling should be available in Memory Profiler v6.