WPR/Xperf: Capture high cpu, disk i/o, file, registry, networking, Private bytes, Virtual bytes, Paged Pool/Nonpaged pool and/or application slowness.

Applies to:

Windows Server 2012

Windows 8

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7

In the previous post (Installing the Windows Performance Toolkit v5.0 (WPRUI, WPR, Xperf)), we went thru installing the Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT).

Note: In Windows Server 2008 R2 and 64-bit Windows 7, you will need to set the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

DisablePagingExecutive (dword) 1 (hex)

Restart

What does this do?

“This tells the operating system not to page kernel mode drivers and system code to disk, which is a prerequisite for getting 64-bit call stacks using wpr/wprui/xperf, because 64-bit stack walking depends on metadata in the executable images, and in some situations the wpr/wprui/xperf stack walk code is not allowed to touch paged out pages.”

What if I don’t want to change this setting?

You will not get the detailed information that we (Microsoft) or the 3rd party ISV or 3rd party OEM or your in-house developers need to grab to troubleshoot the issue.

How much extra memory does this consume?

~7MB of nonpaged pool memory.

Does this need to be done in 32-bit Windows 7? No.

Does this need to be done in Windows Server 2012 or 32-bit/64-bit Windows 8? No.

Right click on “Windows Performance Recorder”

Click on “Run as administrator”

Click on the drop down “More options”

You will see the following options:

Profiles for performance recording	When to use?
CPU usage	High cpu in Application(s) or Service(s) or the System process. Is your application hanging for 5 seconds to a couple of minutes, do you want to find out why?
Disk I/O activity	Is there an application, or service, causing a high disk utilization? Or a storage driver that is causing a slow disk i/o?
File I/O activity	Look at files and folders that are being touched.
Registry I/O activity	Look at registry hits and modifications.
Networking I/O activity	Provides local and target IP addresses, the target port and the dynamic port that the different applications are utilizing.
Heap usage	Private bytes (user mode memory leaks)
Pool usage	Paged pool and/or Nonpaged pool (kernel mode memory leaks)
VAlloc usage	Virtual bytes (user mode memory leaks)
Power usage	Power changes by the processor.
GPU activity	Video card performance
Audio glitches	On a call and your audio is stuttering?
Video glitches	Is the video quality bad?
Internet Explorer	If Internet Explorer is slow to browse to a particular website.
Minifilter I/O activity	Antivirus slowing you down? Find out.