3.0.0

usasma said:
How would you like to handle changes for v2xxx and requests for v3xxx?
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You can make suggestions anywhere within the BSOD Processing Apps Download | Information | Discussions section.



Any and all suggestions are welcome; I will determine which should be part of 3.0.0 based on the suggestion and how doable it is in the current apps. Also, any new threads or posts with suggestions will show up in my e-mail inbox immediately regardless of whether I am subscribed to the thread or not. John (jcgriff2) set up my account to receive notifications for this section so I know as soon as someone posts something or starts a new thread. Thanks John (jcgriff2)!

2.X.X is slowly getting cleaned up. I've introduced a ton of bugs that I am trying to track down now, but I am now able to run all .dmps without console windows popping up. The only time console windows will pop up is with opening the .txt files. I have not yet found a way to avoid that, but I hope to soon.
 
?Portable app that just needs the location of kd.exe?
That way I can run it off a thumb drive if I'm away from my desktop.
 
How about a portable app that requires the path to kd.exe and the path to your thumb drive?

With the thumb drive path, it could determine where to store the SysnativeBSODApps directory for your settings.
 
jcgriff2 said:
I have tried to run kd.exe solo - no go.
Click to expand...

I believe John (usasma) already has kd.exe installed in WinDbg on the systems he wants portability on. He just wants a way for the apps to be able to link with that kd.exe from a flash drive so they can run on any system. I have designed this into 2.9.0 (we are jumping from 2.7.2 to 2.9.0 due to TWO major changes to the apps: console elimination and portability).
 
Not a problem with specifying the drive letter of the USB drive.
Also, maybe an option to copy the results to the current User Profile in (maybe) a Sysnative folder at %userprofile%\Sysnative ?
 
Done. Apps will now copy to %userprofile%\SysnativeResults\(output folder name specified on first screen).

▪ Sysnative BSOD Processing Apps 2.9.0

For portability:
writhziden said:
Copy your SysnativeBSODApps directory from your home computer to the root directory of your external storage device, i.e. a flash / thumb drive.
Run the apps, and choose the drive letter that your external storage drive uses for the system the apps are running on.

For example, I placed my SysnativeBSODApps directory on E: so the license.txt file is within E:\SysnativeBSODApps
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The main problem I have with current version of the app is its performance. Try to analyze different dumps in additional threads (even one per a dump, but no more than a 1000 ;)) and use a simple barrier to collect all the results. Parsing text files is much faster than analyzing dumps :))

m.g.
 
Sorry I am a little late for the discussion...

I downloaded the last test app (3.0.0.9) and it failed to launch on this system (Windows 7 Enterprise x32)...

I am still in the process of cleaning and organizing my PC (amongst other things at home) for a clean install of Windows 8 and setting up for my VMs. So I won't be doing anything with the APP for a little while yet... But I do have some input...

I really like the idea of simplifying the UI. Even pop out menus with the advanced options would work in comparison to the version(s) with all of the options cluttering up the main screen/tabs.
I also really like the idea of changing the naming scheme. The ouput files are quite confusing IMHO.
Perhaps the option to export the files into a spreadsheet format (.csv, .xlsx, .oos)... Just a thought...
I haven't had the chance to check out the latest 2.x.x.x versions... I think you fellows are doing an amazing job with them, BTW... :grin:
I would also like to see a more classic form installer package and the ability to easily change installation directories. I am not a fan of running programs out of the user folder... I have attempted to move the installation to a directory in root and also on a secondary HDD. I like to keep things like this separated from the rest of the system...

One dumb question... Would it be advisable to set up a VM just for running dumps? I am planning on setting up 3 or 4 VMs on my machine (XP, Vista, 7 and 8) for testing purposes... That way I can play and troubleshoot, test programs and such without worrying about adversely affecting my main installation. Too many times have I had to reinstall because I borked something!

Sorry for going off topic a bit! Before I make any more suggestions, I need to start using the app more often!

Thank you fellas for all of your hard work!
 
mgrzeg said:
The main problem I have with current version of the app is its performance. Try to analyze different dumps in additional threads (even one per a dump, but no more than a 1000 ;)) and use a simple barrier to collect all the results. Parsing text files is much faster than analyzing dumps :))

m.g.
Click to expand...

Feasible, but not necessarily doable. kd.exe uses up nearly a full core by itself, so unless you have a super-computer with 1000 cores (or even 50 for the max number of .dmps included in any Minidump folder), this is not a good method for parallelizing the apps. Doing more than two at a time on even a quad core processor would likely lead to problems. I'll investigate, but based on my experience, I do not think parallelizing is a good idea; it also makes it more difficult to keep the apps orderly so .dmps can be run and stored sequentially for a sort-by-date output.

I know at one point, the apps used 25% CPU on a quad core, and kd.exe used another 25%, so two full cores were in use. This led to the system becoming increasingly hot as the apps ran, which is why they now have a lower footprint. kd.exe uses up 25% still, but SysnativeBSODApps uses ~1-5% for most of the run and only spikes during the output phase to around 15-20% (on a quad core).


GZ said:
Sorry I am a little late for the discussion...

I downloaded the last test app (3.0.0.9) and it failed to launch on this system (Windows 7 Enterprise x32)...

I am still in the process of cleaning and organizing my PC (amongst other things at home) for a clean install of Windows 8 and setting up for my VMs. So I won't be doing anything with the APP for a little while yet... But I do have some input...

I really like the idea of simplifying the UI. Even pop out menus with the advanced options would work in comparison to the version(s) with all of the options cluttering up the main screen/tabs.
I also really like the idea of changing the naming scheme. The ouput files are quite confusing IMHO.
Perhaps the option to export the files into a spreadsheet format (.csv, .xlsx, .oos)... Just a thought...
I haven't had the chance to check out the latest 2.x.x.x versions... I think you fellows are doing an amazing job with them, BTW... :grin:
I would also like to see a more classic form installer package and the ability to easily change installation directories. I am not a fan of running programs out of the user folder... I have attempted to move the installation to a directory in root and also on a secondary HDD. I like to keep things like this separated from the rest of the system...

One dumb question... Would it be advisable to set up a VM just for running dumps? I am planning on setting up 3 or 4 VMs on my machine (XP, Vista, 7 and 8) for testing purposes... That way I can play and troubleshoot, test programs and such without worrying about adversely affecting my main installation. Too many times have I had to reinstall because I borked something!

Sorry for going off topic a bit! Before I make any more suggestions, I need to start using the app more often!

Thank you fellas for all of your hard work!
Click to expand...

I will work on implementing a method to specify the directory for the apps. This will probably involve some registry level programming, which I have never done before.

I cannot provide a more standard installer and still have the ngen.exe run to re-compile for faster .NET framework linking. I've looked into this (spent two full days doing so for about 20+ hours), and the only way to do so is to spend big money for installation packages that are made for professional developers. The installer will remain basically the same as it is with a setup.exe and a directory that it installs from. I know it is a bit of an inconvenience and somewhat confusing. It is similar to how things were done 10 years ago for installers, and I have not found a good, inexpensive way around it.

If anyone knows of any good installation packages that can do self-extraction and also run another process as part of the installation, I'm open to suggestions.


As to the VM, I run the apps quite a bit for testing in VMs, but I do have one word of warning regarding them: VMs are not as fast. The apps run half as fast in a VM environment as they do on the physical machine, at least in VirtualBox. There seems to be a bit of a limiter on processing within VIrtualBox. You might have better luck with a VM that is not free-ware, though. :-}
 
writhziden said:
If anyone knows of any good installation packages that can do self-extraction and also run another process as part of the installation, I'm open to suggestions.
Click to expand...

I haven't looked to see whether it fits your criteria, but for installers, I have in the past used Inno to great success: Inno Setup

I also haven't checked the licence agreement for changes recently. But from what I remember, it is an extremely easy to use, powerful, and convenient installer.

Only downside I remember is that it tends to put the uninstalled under some weird name & location, but I may be remembering wrong. But I think I had just a single extra step to rename and move the uninstaller to somewhere more obvious.

I am not sure you need a formal installer, just saying what I have used in the past.

Richard
 
I tried to learn inno, but I did not have much success. All I could get it to do was install to Program Files (some users like having it in the user directory and do not want it moved to Program Files), or to the Documents directory. Those seemed rather restrictive. I was unable to find a way to have it install to the userprofile directory, and I could not figure out how to edit the script to allow ngen.exe to run after the apps installed. If you have a good guide or you can provide some more advanced script help so I can do what needs to be done with the apps, I would appreciate it.

The documentation I could find online was rather lacking. I could find nothing through Google to help me with writing an inno installer script to run another process when finished... :-{


Here is a list of what I need from the installer:

  1. Install for specific users and not just the user running the installer or the administrator running the installer. Some people use standard accounts and do not have administrative privileges.

  2. Try to run ngen.exe at the end (this requires administrative privileges, so if it fails, the installer still needs to complete).

  3. Set up a file to confirm that the license agreement was accepted.

  4. Set up the directories for the apps settings: backup dmpOptions, download, driverStatistics, forumSettings, and parms.
 
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Thanks!!

I'll see if it meets my needs. It may work well with the installer I've built.


Have you used the new Setup.exe for installing the app? Any suggestions on improving it other than letting the user choose the install directory?


Update:

Guess I misunderstood how this worked. It only creates an extractable set of files. It does not run the Setup.exe file when finished.​

I'll post back after trying with the ResHacker.
 
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writhziden said:
Thanks!!

I'll see if it meets my needs. It may work well with the installer I've built.


Have you used the new Setup.exe for installing the app? Any suggestions on improving it other than letting the user choose the install directory?


Update:

Guess I misunderstood how this worked. It only creates an extractable set of files. It does not run the Setup.exe file when finished.​
Click to expand...

Maybe I gave you a bad reference... I am kinda pressed for time here at work right now... I have done it before in the not so distant past... I was able to make it run an executable and a script...
 
GZ said:
Maybe I gave you a bad reference... I am kinda pressed for time here at work right now... I have done it before in the not so distant past... I was able to make it run an executable and a script...
Click to expand...

Nope, I am also pressed for time, which is why I failed to read between the lines that reshacker was required. My mistake. I think I can make it work now. :-}

Appreciate your help with this.

Update:

I ended up having to sign up for that site to get the 7zS.sfx since the 7z.sfx that comes with 7-zip did not work. Probably could have downloaded it from 7-zip in retrospect.

At any rate, all is working as it should and I can now bundle the installer and apps together in one package, and the package is much smaller!! I am extremely happy with this now. :-}​
 
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Out of curiosity, I went back & tested my old batch & VBS BSOD Processing scripts.

CPU utilization hit 47% - kd.exe for each dump.

I never noticed that before.
 
jcgriff2 said:
CPU utilization hit 47% - kd.exe for each dump.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the confirmation. Do you agree that parallelization makes little sense unless we can also talk to Microsoft about lowering the footprint of kd.exe without slowing it down?

The way I see it as of now: I could parallelize the apps, but then kd.exe would take a hit and would probably slow considerably resulting in little (if any) gain.


Just realized I should put this in terms for someone who does not know much about parallel processing.

  1. The request is to parallelize the apps. This would be done by running multiple kd.exe processes on multiple .dmps.

  2. If multiple kd.exe processes are running, they can only utilize so much of the processor. On your system with a duo core, you can run two separate instances of kd.exe without it significantly slowing down. If you were to run four instances, kd.exe could only use about half of what it needs to run, thus slowing it down to ~half its speed. Note I have an approximate sign. This is because I do not know how exactly four instances of kd.exe might behave. It could be that one would utilize the 47% and the other would sit waiting for it to finish.
 
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