I have created a rather large Arduino C++ application, A beehive weighing system (15000 lies, 35 files). Debugging time got to be out of proportion relative to algorithm development time. I was using print-based debugging (i.e., look at variables via Serial.prints).

Hardware-based debugging would be a valuable complementary resource to watch variables, stop and look at variables by setting break points, look at memory and a lot more. My thinking was develop with MicrochipStudio, debug with Atmel ICE since it is a Microchip product. I managed to brick a few ATmega2560 boards and gave up. I then found the ATmega328P Xplained Xmini and the ATmega256RFR2 Xplained Xmini boards. Fantastic, let me explain.

The 328 Xplained board is Uno pin compatible, the 2560 Xplained board IS NOT ATmega2560 board pin compatible.

Upon hooking up either board into your computer and opening MicrochipStudio, you will discover that MicrochipStudio has discovered the board. Icing on the cake, when you do a build, it uploads the executable into the microcontroller. From then on you can hardware-debug to your heart's content. 

The MicrochipStudio/Xplained board combination is truly plug and play.

But there is a dark side: you cannot do the above if the Visual Micro plug-in has been installed.

My recommendation is:
    1 - Develop with Visual Studio 2022 and the Visual Micro plugin.
    2 - Hardware debug with the MicrochipStudio/Xplained boards.

You can do this by setting up interoperability with the two IDEs.

Happy debugging.
Michèle

+ This statemnt is not entirely clear. 

Quote:

 

If you are saying that you can't debug an xplained .ino project in Microchip Studio when Visual Micro is installed then please confirm what you set the vMicro > programmer and the vMicro debugger to?

Thanks