Man, Visual Studio just... stinks. I ended up doing a total rewrite, completely eliminating the C# part entirely, and now finally I get usable info. ironically it wasn't a COM thing at all, but a double-free (well, double "Release" I guess). Between having meltdowns over files it created, and having meltdowns over misinterpreting ITS OWN code due to syntax errors, and just... idk, it's an ice cream cone in a campfire. Sends me back to Linux every time lol...

Anyway, thanks for the links on pre-compiled headers! Definitely gonna check those out, cuz I'm sure it won't be the last time VS melts down over stuff that has little-to-nothing to do with me.