Debug and Release configurations

Question

As we all know, in Visual Studio there are two predefined configurations - Debug and Release. I have been using them since I started programming and soon learnt their differences. However recently I had to create my own configurations and now I have a question: Are those two configurations defined/determined solely by their parameters/options from "project options" page? Or does the microsoft compiler treat them in a special way?

My question is this - if I create a new configuration and copy all settings from Debug or Release, will my new configuration be equivalent to the predefined Debug/Release or not entirely?

Hope my question is clear.

Answer 1

Are those two configurations defined/determined solely by their parameters/options from "project options" page?

Yes.

if I create a new configuration and copy all settings from Debug or Release, will my new configuration be equivalent to the predefined Debug/Release ?

Yes it will.

For instance, the debug configuration defines _DEBUG, the release configuration enables optimisations, etc.