Problem : 
Only one version of Intel® Parallel Studio can be integrated with any one version of Microsoft Visual Studio* at a time. Therefore, if you have Intel Parallel Studio installed on your system and then install a different version along side of it, the newly installed version will be integrated into Visual Studio in place of the previously installed version - this means you will see the newly installed Parallel Studio toolbars, menu items, etc. 

You can control which version of Intel Parallel Studio you use with a particular Visual Studio by performing the steps outlined below.

Environment: 
Windows systems with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and/or 2010 installed along with multiple versions of Intel Parallel Studio.

Root Cause: 
Limit of one Parallel Studio integrated with a version of Visual Studio.

Resolution: 
You will need to change the version of Parallel Studio that is integrated with a particular version of Visual Studio.  This will need to be done for each component of the Parallel Studio that you have installed. 

1. Begin by removing the integration from the version that is currently integrated.

For  Intel Parallel Amplifier or Intel Parallel Inspector, start by opening the Command Prompt window for the version of Parallel Studio you wish to disable. For example:

Now invoke the appropriate script to disable the integration:

For Intel Parallel Composer use the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs for the version you want to disable:

Select Modify and disable the following options:

○ Integrated Documentation
○ Intel Parallel Debugger Extension
○ Integration(s) in Microsoft Visual Studio

            Select Next > Modify

2. Enable the Visual Studio integration.   

For  Intel Parallel Amplifier or Intel Parallel Inspector, start by opening the Command Prompt window for the version of Parallel Studio you wish to enable, then invoke the appropriate script to enable the integration:

For Intel Parallel Composer use the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs entry for the version you want to enable:

Select Modify and enable the following options:

○ Integrated Documentation
○ Intel Parallel Debugger Extension
○ Integration(s) in Microsoft Visual Studio

The next steps are different based on your license type.

If you have a single user license, follow the simple steps below. 

Save the license file sent to you by email to:

          • On Windows*: <installation drive>\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\Licenses
          • On Linux*: /opt/intel/licenses
          • On MAC OS* X: /Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Intel/Licenses
            Note: if the INTEL_LICENSE_FILE environment variable is defined, copy the file to the directory specified by the environment variable, instead.


If you have a counted (floating) license, you must do following to install and configure your License Host Server system and your client systems:

- Set up the license host server system
- Read the Intel License Manager for FLEXlm* User's Guide
- Download the correct Intel FLEXlm server for license host server system
- Install the FLEXlm server: after installation, the license server should start running automatically
- To manually start or stop the FLEXlm license server, please refer to the FLEXlm user's guide

References and useful articles: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/licensing-faq/

Using both of these technologies at the same time has the following implications...

• Binaries under analysis of Inspector may be interrupted by dialogue boxes
  • Press the "ignore" button- execution will continue (recommended action) - note: you may have to press "ignore" multiple times - as by default this dialogue box will appear every so many instances for each unique error detected.
  • Do not press the "abort" button - as that will exit the application before Intel Parallel Inspector can give you a list of all memory errors, and Intel Parallel Inspector may report false positives as your application exited prematurely.
  • Do not press the “retry” button in the dialog box, else - the debugger will open and point you to assembly code that was "generated" as a result of running your application under the  Inspector analysis engine rather than the assembly of your application (not recommended)
• The same issue may be reported by both technologies.
• Performance will suffer as both technologies are tracking and checking memory usage

You may want to turn off the Debug Heap Manager provided by the Microsoft C runtime library.

There is only one way to "turn off" the debug heap manager... and that is:

•   Use the Release/Base version of the Microsoft C runtime library by compiling with either /MD or /MT

In the ideal situation, it is recommended that you use /Od with memory error analysis in Intel Parallel Inspector with the /MD or /MT runtime library selections. By default a "debug" configuration in Visual Studio will select /MDd or /MTd settings rather than the /MD or /MT settings. You would need to check these settings for each project in your solution.  Note: It can be difficult to accomplish this on large projects - as it will be difficult to have the same runtime library used in your entire application (all dll(s), lib(s), etc).

Another way, to work around this problem - is to tell the "debug" version of the heap manager to disable heap checking and reporting (tracking still occurs with this method).  This can be done using the _CrtSetDbgFlag api.  An example follows showing a code snippet which turns these features off.

#include <crtdbg.h>

main() {

int oriDbgFlag, newDbgFlag;

oriDbgFlag = _CrtSetDbgFlag(_CRTDBG_REPORT_FLAG);

newDbgFlag &= ~_CRTDBG_ALLOC_MEM_DF; //Turn this off (by default it is on)

newDbgFlag |= _CRTDBG_CHECK_ALWAYS_DF;  //Turn this on (by default it is off)

newDbgFlag &= ~_CRTDBG_CHECK_CRT_DF;  //Not needed as this is default

newDbgFlag &= ~_CRTDBG_DELAY_FREE_MEM_DF; //Not needed as this is default

newDbgFlag &= ~_CRTDBG_LEAK_CHECK_DF; //Not needed as this is default

newDbgFlag = (newDbgFlag & 0x0000FFFF) | _CRTDBG_CHECK_DEFAULT_DF; //Not needed as this is default

newDbgFlag = _CrtSetDbgFlag(newDbgFlag);

//...

For more information look for _CrtSetDbgFlag at MSDN.

Potential dialogue boxes/messages that the debug heap manager of the Microsoft C runtime library may produce, which can be suppressed using the techniques above (when under analysis of Intel Parallel Inspector):

Client hook allocation failure at file

Client hook allocation failure %hs line

Invalid allocation size:

Error: memory allocation: bad memory block type.

Client hook re-allocation failure at file %hs line.

Client hook re-allocation failure Or Error: memory allocation: bad memory block type.

Error: memory allocation: bad memory block type. The Block at 0x%p was allocated by aligned routines, use _aligned_realloc(). The Block at 0x%p was allocated by aligned routines, use _aligned_free()

Client hook free failure. HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: before %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p. CRT detected that the application wrote to memory before start of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: after %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: after %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.

_heapchk fails with _HEAPBADBEGIN.

_heapchk fails with _HEAPBADNODE.

_heapchk fails with _HEAPBADEND.

_heapchk fails with _HEAPBADPTR.

_heapchk fails with unknown return value!

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: before %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory before start of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: before %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory before start of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: after %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: after %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: on top of Free block at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to a heap buffer that was freed.

HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: on top of Free block at 0x%p.

CRT detected that the application wrote to a heap buffer that was freed.

%hs located at 0x%p is %Iu bytes long.

Bad memory block found at 0x%p.

Detected memory leaks!

Damage before 0x%p which was allocated by aligned routine

Intel® Parallel Inspector Update 1 has realized this feature.

After the user has installed the product, open a Command Prompt window, run

C:\Program Files\Intel\Parallel Studio\Inspector\insp-vars.bat

Thus the environment for command line has been settled down, now can use insp-cl

The user can run "insp-cl -help" to be familiar with the syntax of command.

Usage:

insp-cl <-action-option [-modifier-option] [[--] target [target options]]

Action-option contains：collect, collect-list, command, command-list, finalize, help, version

Modifier-option contains：[no-]discard-suppressed-problem, log-dir, option-file, result-dir, return-app-exitcode, search-dir, suppression-file, user-data-dir, verbose

Below are some examples to use insp-cl: 

insp-cl -collect-list      [List all checking modes, now are mi1-mi4, ti1-ti4]

insp-cl -collect mi2 Banner.exe [Generate results in sub-directory, refer to Insp-cl.txt]

insp-cl -collect mi3 -result-dir r009mi3 Banner.exe [Generate results in specified sub-directory]

insp-cl -collect mi3 Banner.exe  [First time run it]

insp-cl -create-suppression-file mySup [Generate a suppression file, based on previous run]

insp-cl -collect mi3 -suppression-file mySup Banner.exe [Use suppression file to run, but don't report errors which already are in suppression file]

Q. Does Intel® Parallel Studio provide any support for Microsoft Visual* Studio* 2003?

A. Microsoft* Visual Studio* 2005 and 2008 are supported. Please check system requirements at: http://software.intel.com/sites/products/documentation/studio/studio/en-us/2009/start/release_notes_studio.pdf

Q. What operating systems are supported?

A. Please check requirements at: http://software.intel.com/sites/products/documentation/studio/studio/en-us/2009/start/release_notes_studio.pdf

Q. Where does the profiling information come from? Is it an Intel tool?

A. Yes, you can use Intel(R) Parallel Amplifier to find hotspots in your program/application. The Intel(R) Parallel Amplifier, an Intel(R) Parallel Studio tool, provides information on the performance of your code. Use the Parallel Amplifier to analyze the following types of performance issues in your threaded applications:

- Identify the most time-consuming (hot) functions

- Locate sections of code that do not effectively utilize available processor time

- Determine the best sections of code to optimize for sequential performance and for threaded performance

- Locate synchronization objects that affect the program performance

- Find whether, where, and why your program spends time on input/output operations

- Identify and compare the performance impact of different synchronization methods, different numbers of threads, or different algorithms

Q. How do I get the material to the previous seminars and technical sessions I missed?

A. Go to www.intel.com/go/parallel under "Related Links" on the right and click "Free, on-demand parallelism webinars".

Q. Is there any Intel software tool for parallelism under Linux platform?

A. Yes. We do have an existing line of tools, including Intel® VTune analyzer, Intel® Thread Checker, and the Intel® Compilers, which run on Linux.

Q. What is the difference between Intel® VTune^TM analyzer/Intel® Thread Checker and Intel® Parallel Studio? Or can they be used in a good combination somehow?

A. Yes. Moreover, Parallel Studio is built on the latest technology (PIN) for faster analysis. Also, Parallel Inspector includes memory checking in addition to "Thread Checking". Parallel Amplifier has Statistical Call Graph for profiling your applications with low overhead to detect where time is spent in your application. See Intel® Parallel Amplifier vs. Intel® VTune^TM Analyzer Comparison.

Q. Have you had any experience using Intel Parallel Studio with large programs (500,000 lines)? I have used VTune analyzer in the past and it was difficult to use because the size of the program I was working with was large.

A. The Intel® Parallel Studio offers a more streamlined and simplified usage model for hotspot analysis similar to VTune analyzer. The sampling methodology used is the same. This means that with big applications you have to watch for sampling overhead and the influence this has on your application sampling. You may want to consider focusing your sampling on application subsets and individual application components rather than the whole application and use a stepped approach or an approach with a smaller input data stream. All this depends a bit on the exact architecture of your application. See Intel® Parallel Amplifier vs. Intel® VTune^TM Analyzer Comparison.

Q. Is Intel® Threading Building Blocks (TBB) open source, and where may I get the source for OpenMP*?

A. Intel® Threading Building Blocks (TBB) source files can be downloaded here: http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/download.php. Intel's implementation of OpenMP* is not an open source project.

Q. If Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite finds the hotspot in the code, do we still have a need to use the Intel® Parallel Amplifier for finding hotspot?

A. Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite works on the serial portions of your application.  It leverages Intel® Parallel Amplifier's hot spot analysis to help identify likely areas in your serial application to experiment with parallelism - in particular, we recommend using Parallel Amplifier's "Top Down" view where one would work up the call tree to find a likely site.

If all you need are hot spots, then Parallel Advisor Lite has already found them for you by leveraging Parallel Amplifier.  However, once you have added parallelism, Parallel Amplifier can help you tune the parallelism using the Concurrency analysis to see where the threading is being used effectively, and the Locks and Waits analysis to determine if the program is wasting resources in synchronization sequences.

The following table can help you decide which tool to use:

	Intel® Parallel Inspector	Intel® Thread Checker
Threading errors - Data races and Deadlocks	√	√
Does not require special build or source code	√	√
Memory errors	√
Easier to learn and reuse	√
Low overhead analysis	√
Improved scalable analysis without serializing the app	√
Windows* standalone		√
Linux* support		√
Licensing	Single User	Single User & Floating
Support	forum support premier support option	unlimited premier support & 1 year product updates

The Parallel Inspector and the Parallel Amplifier have new options (plug-in) in Microsoft* Visual Studio* 2005/2008's  "Options" dialog, please see "Result Location" item under "Intel Parallel Inspector" and "Intel Parallel Amplifier", change it from "Save results in the Visual Studio* project default location" to "Save results in the directory:". Note that the user should specify a directory which already is existed.



2. Sometime the user starts the Parallel Inspector Analysis or the Parallel Amplifier Analysis, meanwhile the user wants to see separated Console application's running. The user can simply modify "Direct output for non-GUI application to:" from "Separate console windows" to "Microsoft* Visual Studio* output window".

After doing above change, the use can watch Analysis status and Console application's running simultaneously.