Fix 0X00000227: Profiling Not Stopped Error on Windows

1. Stuck Profiler Process (Most Common Cause)

The usual culprit is a profiler process—like vsperfcmd.exe (Visual Studio) or wpr.exe (Windows Performance Recorder)—that didn't get killed when you pressed stop. I've seen this happen when you close Visual Studio mid-session, or when a profiler crashes itself. The OS still thinks profiling is running and blocks any new start.

The Fix

1. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and look for these processes under the Details tab:
   • vsperfcmd.exe
   • wpr.exe
   • profile.exe (older frameworks)
   • VsPerfMon.exe
2. Right-click each and select End task. If they won't die, use taskkill /F /IM vsperfcmd.exe from an admin Command Prompt.
3. Reboot. That's the nuclear option, but it always works if some kernel-level profiling driver got stuck.

I had a client last month whose entire print queue died because of this—well, not the queue, but their profiling session locked up and prevented any debug sessions from starting. A reboot fixed it in 30 seconds.

2. Corrupt Profiling State in Registry

If killing the process didn't work, the profiling state might be stored in the registry and needs a manual reset. This happens when a profiler doesn't clean up after itself—common with older Visual Studio versions or the Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT).

The Fix

1. Press Win+R, type regedit, and hit Enter.
2. Navigate to:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options

3. Look for keys named after your profiler—like vsperfcmd.exe or devenv.exe. If you see a subkey named PerfOptions or ProfilingMode, delete it.
4. Also check:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[version]\Profiler

   Delete anything there that looks like a stuck session (e.g., ActiveSession).
5. Reboot.

One developer I helped had this exact problem after running Visual Studio 2019's CPU profiler on a Windows 10 machine. Deleting the PerfOptions key got him back to work in five minutes.

3. Conflicting Anti-Virus or Security Software

Some security software (like Bitdefender or McAfee) hooks into process creation and can interfere with the profiler's startup/shutdown sequence. The profiler tries to stop, but the anti-virus holds a reference to the process and doesn't release it, causing the error.

The Fix

1. Temporarily disable your anti-virus real-time protection.
2. Try starting/stopping the profiler again.
3. If it works, add the profiler's executable (e.g., vsperfcmd.exe, wpr.exe) to your anti-virus exclusion list. Also exclude the profiling data folder (usually %TEMP%\*profiler* or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\Profiler).
4. Re-enable your anti-virus.

I had a client running Windows Server 2022 with Trend Micro that couldn't use any profiling tools at all. Once we added exclusions, everything worked fine. The lesson: anti-virus vendors often don't test against developer tools.

Quick-Reference Summary Table

If none of these work, you might have a corrupted installation of the profiling tools themselves. Try repairing Visual Studio or reinstalling the Windows Performance Toolkit from the Windows SDK. But honestly, 90% of the time it's a stuck process or a registry leftover. Start there.