starting debugger and system reset

QUARTUS 5.0 NIOS 5.0

when I start a program in debugger, I would expect that there is a cpu reset,

before the program is downloaded.

e.g. PIO outputs are reset to their defaults '0', and all peripherals can be

reset to default state.

but when I download a simple led program to the cyclone development board, I can

see that the program stops in main in debugger with led's on.

Why is there no reset, when I start a program in debugger?