Where can I see ATLTRACE output?

I'm maintaining a C++ COM project. There are some trace lines like ATLTRACE(message); I searched ATLTRACE. MSDN told Visual C++ output window will display it. However, the product is a release one. The customer won't have the source nor to debug it in VS. So is there any other convenient way to see it? Will Windows Event viewer catch that? Or I have to change the code? Win7, VS2013

Solution

The ATLTRACE only uses only the debug output and it works only in the Debug version!

So you may give the enduser a debug version for testing purpose, and use DebugView from Sysinternals. But this may be complicated because you also have to over the debug runtimes that are not redistributable.

But you can easily write your own MY_TRACE macro that has the same functionality.

#define MY_TRACE  GetMyTracer()   // returns object of CMyTracer
...

class CMyTracer
{
  ...
  // Helper operator to get the trace commands. They call the TraceV functions
  void operator()(PCSTR pszFormat, ...);
  void operator()(PCWSTR pszFormat, ...);

  // Worker functions that do the real job calling TraceV functions
  void Trace(PCSTR pszFormat, ...);
  void Trace(PCWSTR pszFormat, ...);

  // Allowed to be virtual to do some internal mystique stuff, like redirecting and this functions perform all output...
  virtual void TraceV(PCSTR pszFormat, va_list args);
  virtual void TraceV(PCWSTR pszFormat, va_list args);
  ...

Now you can use this instead of ATLTRACE

...
MYTRACE("Simple output\n");
MYTRACE("More complex output %d\n", 4711);

Note: It is not wise to replace all ATLTRACE macros with your own replacement. You may spread your trace output onto locations were it don't have impact un speed, but is worth the information.