Parasoft Insure++ Is Being Discontinued. Here’s What Replaces It.

Parasoft has announced that Insure++ is being discontinued in June/July 2026. If you have been using Insure++ for C/C++ memory debugging on Windows, you need a replacement.

This post covers what Memory Validator replaces, where it goes further, and the one area where you will need a separate tool. For a full capability mapping, see the Insure++ migration guide.

What Insure++ did

Insure++ was a C and C++ memory debugger for Windows. Its headline capability was patented source code instrumentation — to get full analysis, you compiled and linked your application through Insure++, which generated its own instrumented build and passed it to your actual compiler. The result was deep visibility into memory errors: heap corruption, buffer overflows, use-after-free, double-free, uninitialized memory reads, array out of bounds. Insure++ also included built-in code coverage and a graphical memory visualisation view.

It was a well-regarded tool with 25 years in the market. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, and Thales were among its customers. If it was part of your workflow, finding a replacement that actually covers what you need is worth doing carefully.

Compiler and OS support

Insure++ supported Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019. Visual Studio 2022 and 2026 were not supported. On the OS side, Insure++ supported Windows 10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2019. Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 were not supported.

Memory Validator supports Visual C++ 6 through Visual Studio 2026, and runs on all versions of Windows from XP through Windows 10 and 11, and all equivalent server versions.

The recompile requirement

The most significant workflow difference between Insure++ and Memory Validator is instrumentation approach. Insure++ required you to recompile and relink your application every time you wanted a full analysis run. Memory Validator instruments at the binary level, at runtime. You do not recompile. You do not relink. You attach to your existing build and run.

For daily debugging work, this compounds quickly. Every iteration that would have triggered a recompile-and-relink cycle with Insure++ is an immediate run with Memory Validator.

Memory errors: what Memory Validator covers

Memory Validator detects heap memory leaks, heap corruption, and buffer overwrites. It also detects double-free and use-after-free — in Memory Validator this is called deleted-this detection. Deleted-this is off by default because it adds an instrumentation step, but enabling it requires no recompile. It is a settings change.

Memory Validator can see leaks in all DLLs your application loads — including third-party libraries you do not own source for. The only leaks it does not report are those originating inside Microsoft’s own DLL internals, where the allocation is paired with a deallocation you cannot intercept, and any DLLs you have explicitly told Memory Validator to ignore. Everything else is visible.

Beyond what Insure++ tracked

Insure++ tracked heap memory. Memory Validator tracks heap memory, GDI handles, Windows kernel handles, and .NET handles.

GDI handle exhaustion and Windows handle exhaustion are genuine problems in Windows applications — they surface as crashes or degraded behaviour after extended runtime, and they are difficult to diagnose without a tool that specifically tracks them. Insure++ did not track these. If you have been relying on Insure++ for memory analysis and hitting handle-related problems separately, Memory Validator covers both in the same session.

The displays

Insure++ had memory visualisation. Memory Validator’s graphical displays are more detailed: more dedicated views showing the collected data from different angles, colour coding that conveys information at a glance, and richer callstack data per allocation. If you found Insure++’s visualisation useful, Memory Validator’s is better.

Code coverage

Insure++ bundled code coverage alongside memory analysis in a single product. Memory Validator does not include code coverage — that is a separate product, Coverage Validator. If code coverage was part of your Insure++ workflow, you will need both Memory Validator and Coverage Validator to replace it.

Coverage Validator is available individually or as part of the QA Suite, which bundles Memory Validator, Coverage Validator, and Performance Validator in a single purchase.

Suites

If you want a single-licence option:

The Support Suite includes Memory Validator and Performance Validator.

The QA Suite includes Memory Validator, Coverage Validator, and Performance Validator.

The Developer Suite includes Memory Validator, Coverage Validator, Performance Validator, and Thread Validator.

Starting the migration

Memory Validator and Coverage Validator are both available as fully functional 30-day trials. No feature restrictions during the trial.

If you have questions about how your specific Insure++ workflow maps to our tools, contact us directly.