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Setting Debugging preferences
The Debugging pane of the Max Preferences window shows some settings broadly associated with debugging and tracing tasks in Max, such as interacting with the Max scheduler, signal probing and matrix probing features, and the use of Watchpoint.

As a default, you can start and stop the Max scheduler by holding down the Command Key (Macintosh) or Control Key (Windows) and typing a period. This feature may be disabled. It may be useful to disable this feature in Standalone applications, in some cases (so that users don't accidentally stop the scheduler).
Disabling scheduler stopping

By default, signal and matrix probing are enabled when you launch Max. Besides the personal matter of whether you'd like these features available on launching Max, you may also wish to disable these features in Standalone applications.
Disabling/enabling signal and matrix probing

Configuring Max to save watchpoints