Release bugs only show up when running EXE outside of Visual Studio

Release bugs only show up when running EXE outside of Visual Studio

I have an issue that I am trying to debug that only happens when I run the
release exe built directly outside of Visual Studio. When I am executing
it from within Visual Studio the program behaves normally, even when using
specific project properties to debug a "release" build, such as turning on
optimizations, explained on the following page.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fsk896zz%28v=vs.100%29.aspx
I experience no issues using those settings and running/debugging from
withing VS, but when I copy the exe and required files (images and some
dll) to it's own directory and run the exe directly instead of through
VS2010 I experience a couple errors. This is making it hard to debug as I
can't get the issue to occur inside VS no matter what settings I use.
Am I missing some settings or is there still more things that happen
differently outside of VS2010 that I can't simulate from within VS 2010?
I am not using any arguments or environment variables that could be
affecting it and the file structure from the working directory is
identical to the way it is in the source code directory.