Fooling Around

ProcessSnapshot is a utility to take a snapshot of process call stacks, and the snapshot taken is written into a human friendly text file.

Additionally to this, the utility has been given a capability to create process minidump files, on user request. The minidump files can be used with debugger to analyze the context of the process using feature rich debug environment, esp. Microsoft Visual Studio. To create a minidump for a process, check a corresponding box and press “Take a Dump” button. A file named “<process-image-name> – <date> <time>.dmp” will be created in the directory of the utility executable.

See also:

• Minidump Files (MSDN)
• How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging
• Post-Mortem Debugging Your Application with Minidumps and Visual Studio .NET
• How to View Windows Minidump Files

A binary [Win32, x64] and partial Visual C++ .NET 2008 source code are available from SVN.

Windows Media Codec List utility uses IWMCodecInfo interface (see also IWMCodecInfo2, IWMCodecInfo3) lists installed Windows Media Codecs and their formats and presents the findings in a convenient way. The utility gives a quick idea what a programmer would obtain through IWMCodecInfo2/IWMCodecInfo3 interfaces and what well known format structures (WM_MEDIA_TYPE, AM_MEDIA_TYPE, WAVEFORMATEX, VIDEOINFOHEADER) correspond to particular format.

For a description of Windows Media video and audio codecs, check article Encoding Audio and Video with Windows Media Codecs.

Copy button copies discovered information into clipboard in comma-separated values (CSV) format (e.g. suitable fo rMicrosoft Excel). Submit button posts the same information to this website for… possibly further aggregation.

Some quick facts immediately visualized by the utility:

• for a video codec there is exactly one generic codec format listed
• video codec FOUCCs are: WM Video – WMV1, WMV2, WMV3; WM Video Screen – MSS1, MSS2; WM Video Image – WMVP, WVP2; WM Video Advanced Profile – WVC1
• for audio codecs there are complete codec formats enumerated, with names/descriptions suitable for GUI
• audio codecs enumerate different formats in response to enumeration settings (e.g. request for VBR formats)
• WM Audio Lossless only lists formats for single pass VBR mode
• audio format tags (wFormatTag) are: WM Audio including Professional and Lossless – 0×0161, 0×0162, 0×0163; WM Audio Voice – 0×000A; ACELP.net – 0×0130

Partial Visual C++ .NET 2008 source code is available from SVN, release binary included.

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Alax.Info DHCP Server was updated to provide user interface and show a list of issued DHCP leases, including:

• hardware (MAC) address and IP address correspondence
• latest date and time of DHCP lease issue
• sortable list to be able to conveniently arrange entries and lookup items of interest

Other changes include:

• stores latest lease issue date and time in registry to be able to locate recently issued leases
• indicates Windows service status through system tray icon (running or stopped)
• minor fixes

Release information:

• Updated Version: 1.0.4
• Download Link: AlaxInfoDhcpServerSetup.msi (368K)
• Registration Cart: http://www.shareit.com/product.html

Alax.Info DHCP Server received more configuration options and allows customizable DHCP parameters, options 3, 4 and 6:

Registry:
                                           Data
Tag       Name                             Length  Meaning                                           Reference
--------  -------------------------------  ------  ------------------------------------------------  ---------
3         Router                           N       N/4 Router addresses                              [RFC2132]
4         Time Server                      N       N/4 Timeserver addresses                          [RFC2132]
6         Domain Server                    N       N/4 DNS Server addresses                          [RFC2132]

Application GUI allows configuration of the options, including multiple IP addresses per option and “this” placeholder to be replaced with selected network adapter’s IP address:

The DHCP Server application responds to the network device with a packet of the following kind (captured by WireShark):

Release information:

• Updated Version: 1.0.3
• Download Link: AlaxInfoDhcpServerSetup.msi (357K)
• Registration Cart: http://www.shareit.com/product.html

At some point you might need to start paying special care for resources. Why? Perhaps there might be a number of reasons, I had to when I was dealing with first OEM versions of software and then internationalization. The whole idea is to let development team keep on working on regular version of software, in English language, while build OEM versions and localized versions of software by only manipulation with resources. It is an extremely important aspect of development because engineers always have full hands of work to do and there is no justification for getting extra work for them to deal with.

The first stage is development of regular English version of software and then other people replace resources to achieve desired branding (strings, titles, messages, icons, logos, version information, digital signatures; localized version whether they are resource duplicates for other languages or satellite DLLs), synchronize translations, prepare setup and distribution files.

One of the really simple and useful utilities on this way is the one that converts linked resources into a human readable file, so that it is possible to search for specific string through all resources of a binary (and actually all resources of the package if a batch makes such text files out of all binaries and then Find in Files Visual Studio .NET IDE feature is used).

ListResources writes an XML formatted file and prints infomration about:

• resource types, identifiers and languages
• extended information about:
  • menus RT_MENU
  • dialog templates RT_DIALOG
  • string tables RT_STRING
  • message tables RT_MESSAGETABLE
  • version information RT_VERSION

C:\ListResources "%WINDIR%\system32\winhttp.dll" >winhttp.xml

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While regsvr32 tool is used to register COM servers, such as .DLL, .OCX, .AX files, sometimes you need an equivalent for type library files, such as .TLB, for example to automate software registration on a host. There has been no stock utility for this that I am aware of, so I have been using my own one (RegisterTypeLibrary):

C:\Program Files\Alax.Info\Media Tools>RegisterTypeLibrary.exe Acquisition.dll
Type Library Information:
  File Path: Acquisition.dll
  File Full Path: C:\Program Files\Alax.Info\Media Tools\Acquisition.dll
  Name: AlaxInfoMediaToolsAcquisition
  Documentation String: Alax.Info Media Tools Acquisition 1.0 Type Library
  GUID: {4C03D3C8-13AD-451F-9363-FAD08EF94A91}
  LCID: 0
  Platform: 1
  Version: 1.0
  Flags: 0x8

Registering...
Registered.

/U unregisters, /Q displays information about type library (may be useful as it also works for .DLL files where type library is embedded into binary).

A Visual C++ .NET 2008 source code is available from SVN, release binary included.

While troubleshooting released application on remote production site, it is very useful to grasp a state of the process for further analysis. There are several scenarios in which the following information about process state is helpful:

• modules (DLLs) loaded into process and their versions
• threads and their call stacks
• process and thread performance

An utility ProcessSnapshot takes advantage of Debugging Tools API (dbghelp.dll – note the dialog also displays DLL version in the right bottom corner) and writes this helpful information to text file and it can also take a sequence of the snapshots to compare thread performance and/or stacks and check the difference.

The generated file is in the directory of the utility application and looks like:

Snapshot
  System Time: 10/14/2008 8:46:33 PM
  Local Time: 10/14/2008 11:46:33 PM

Performance
  Creation System Time: 10/14/2008 8:46:28 PM
  Kernel Time: 0.094 s
  User Time: 0.031 s

Modules

  Module: ProcessSnapshot.exe @00400000
    Base Address: 0x00400000
    Base Size: 0x0005b000 (372736)
    Name: ProcessSnapshot.exe
    Path: D:\Projects\Utilities\ProcessSnapshot\Release\ProcessSnapshot.exe
    Product Version: 1.0.0.1
    File Version: 1.0.0.125

  Module: ntdll.dll @7c900000
    Base Address: 0x7c900000
    Base Size: 0x000af000 (716800)
    Name: ntdll.dll
    Path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntdll.dll
    Product Version: 5.1.2600.5512
    File Version: 5.1.2600.5512
[...]

Threads

  Thread: 3824
    Base Priority: 8
    Creation System Time: 10/14/2008 8:46:57 PM
    Kernel Time: 0.063 s
    User Time: 0.031 s
    Call Stack
      ntdll!7c90e4f4 KiFastSystemCallRet (+ 0) @7c900000
      USER32!7e4249c4 GetCursorFrameInfo (+ 460) @7e410000
      USER32!7e424a06 DialogBoxIndirectParamAorW (+ 54) @7e410000
      USER32!7e4247ea DialogBoxParamW (+ 63) @7e410000
      ProcessSnapshot!00403f45 ATL::CDialogImpl<CMainDialog,ATL::CWindow>::DoModal (+ 67) [c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 9.0\vc\atlmfc\include\atlwin.h, 3478] (+ 28) @00400000
      ProcessSnapshot!00403b6f CProcessSnapshotModule::RunMessageLoop (+ 74) [d:\projects\utilities\processsnapshot\processsnapshot.cpp, 67] (+ 0) @00400000
      ProcessSnapshot!004049b9 ATL::CAtlExeModuleT<CProcessSnapshotModule>::Run (+ 17) [c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 9.0\vc\atlmfc\include\atlbase.h, 3552] (+ 0) @00400000
      ProcessSnapshot!004041c3 ATL::CAtlExeModuleT<CProcessSnapshotModule>::WinMain (+ 48) [c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 9.0\vc\atlmfc\include\atlbase.h, 3364] (+ 5) @00400000
      ProcessSnapshot!00434477 wWinMain (+ 5) [*d:\projects\utilities\processsnapshot\release\processsnapshot.inj:5, 14] (+ 0) @00400000
      ProcessSnapshot!00415058 __tmainCRTStartup (+ 274) [f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\self_x86\crt\src\crt0.c, 263] (+ 27) @00400000
      !00360033

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