How to: Set a Thread Name in Native Code

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

To set a thread name in your program, use the SetThreadName function, as shown in the following code example. Note that the thread name is copied to the thread so that the memory for the threadName parameter can be released.

Example

//  
// Usage: SetThreadName ((DWORD)-1, "MainThread");  
//  
#include <windows.h>  
const DWORD MS_VC_EXCEPTION = 0x406D1388;  
#pragma pack(push,8)  
typedef struct tagTHREADNAME_INFO  
{  
    DWORD dwType; // Must be 0x1000.  
    LPCSTR szName; // Pointer to name (in user addr space).  
    DWORD dwThreadID; // Thread ID (-1=caller thread).  
    DWORD dwFlags; // Reserved for future use, must be zero.  
 } THREADNAME_INFO;  
#pragma pack(pop)  
void SetThreadName(DWORD dwThreadID, const char* threadName) {  
    THREADNAME_INFO info;  
    info.dwType = 0x1000;  
    info.szName = threadName;  
    info.dwThreadID = dwThreadID;  
    info.dwFlags = 0;  
#pragma warning(push)  
#pragma warning(disable: 6320 6322)  
    __try{  
        RaiseException(MS_VC_EXCEPTION, 0, sizeof(info) / sizeof(ULONG_PTR), (ULONG_PTR*)&info);  
    }  
    __except (EXCEPTION_EXECUTE_HANDLER){  
    }  
#pragma warning(pop)  
}  
  

See Also

Debug Multithreaded Applications
Viewing Data in the Debugger
How to: Set a Thread Name in Managed Code