[Updated with an answer to Question 3]
Once again I want to thank everyone who came out for my talk on IntelliTrace and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate yesterday at Tech Ed 2011!
After querying some MVPs and some product group members, we’ve come up with answers to some of the questions that were posed yesterday:
Question 1: Can you turn on call logging in IntelliTrace dynamically? The example I was given was the application under test takes a while to spin up and makes a bunch of calls that they don’t want IntelliTrace information for. They want to essentially be able to dynamically turn on call tracing in IntelliTrace.
This is not possible with Visual Studio 2010. IntelliTrace is needs to be there when the process starts, and once it does, the collection plan cannot change until the process is restarted.
Question 2: Using IntelliTrace against assemblies deployed in the GAC, and will it work, and do you have to do anything special?
IntelliTrace collects its information on the process, so collecting information against assemblies deployed in the GAC should not be an issue. Here is some great information from Ed Blankenship on this:
You’re actually collecting IntelliTrace diagnostic information from a .NET process and not necessarily a DLL. However, if the process loads some DLLs then they would be collected as well (depending on the settings of course). So if you wanted to collect information from a custom TFS build workflow activity, you would actually have to attach the TFSBuildService.exe process to get information from your custom activity’s .DLL if that makes any sense. Whether it was in the GAC shouldn’t matter.
Question 3: Someone is in a 2008 environment. (VS and TFS). They want to know if they could use the IntelliTrace command line executable to gather data in their application that they are testing. Obviously they aren’t testing via MTM.
The answer is, yes you can gather collection in this fashion. You will need VS 2010 Ultimate to be able to view the IntelliTrace information though.
I want to thank Ed Blankenship, Brian Keller, Brian Randell, Mark Groves, and Larry Guger for their quick input into these questions.
It’s today.
14 hours from now.
Wow, where does the time go? Here I am, sitting in the Memphis airport on Sunday evening, waiting for my flight to Atlanta for Tech Ed 2011 – North America. I love going to Tech Ed, as it is the conference that really re-energizes me for the year. And this year especially, as I’m speaking again on one of the biggest stages in the world.
This year I am speaking on IntelliTrace, formerly known as “Historical Debugging”. The main idea behind IntelliTrace is that you no longer run into the “un-reproducable bug” scenario. But, as you’ll see in my talk, you can do so much more with it than that. And for the extremely hard-core, you can even customize the information that is collected. All of which will be touched on in some form or fashion in my talk.
In addition to IntelliTrace, I’ll also be talking about debugging tips in general. Some people don’t realize all the power that the debugger in Visual Studio 2010 can give you, so we are going to look at some tips and tricks around the debugger, and especially breakpoints, that can make your life easier.
I speak on Wednesday at 3:15, and I’d love to see a packed crowd. And remember, I’m not above bribing people to come to my session! So, in addition to some T-Shirts, and anything else I can drum up before Wednesday, I also have a copy of “Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010”, signed by all four authors. There are not very many copies out there signed by all four of us, so this is definitely a must-have! 
Keep a watch on my blog and my twitter feed this week. I’ll be tweeting from Tech Ed, and posting information about my talk here. And don’t be a stranger! If you are at Tech Ed and want to meet up, send me an email (mickey_gousset at yahoo dot com) or a tweet or a text message, come to the TLC, or come to my session. I’d love to meet up with you. Let’s grab some breakfast or lunch!
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’ll be speaking on IntelliTrace at Tech Ed 2001 – North America. This blog post is the first in a series that I’ll publish as I delve into IntelliTrace in more detail, in preparation for my talk.
IntelliTrace is enabled by default in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, but it is configured so as to only capture some basic information, so as to not impact application performance. I thought a good starting point would be to look and see what the different configuration options for IntelliTrace are.
To access the IntelliTrace options in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, select Tools | Options. This will open the Options window. Scroll down until you see the IntelliTrace node. Expand the IntelliTrace node and select General.
The General tab is where you can enable/disable IntelliTrace by checking/unchecking the Enable IntelliTrace checkbox. By default, the checkbox is checked, indicating that IntelliTrace is turned on.
You have two options for collecting IntelliTrace information:
- IntelliTrace events only – Selecting this radio button tells IntelliTrace to only collect information related to IntelliTrace events. This is the default mode, and the one that has a minimal effect on performance.
- IntelliTrace events and call information – Selecting this radio button tells IntelliTrace to collect both event information, and call stack information. The call stack information can include method names, method parameters, and return values. As you can imagine, depending on the amount of information collected, this can lead to performance issues with the application.
The image above shows the two warning messages that appear if you select IntelliTrace events and call information. The first is a general warning that the change you have made will not take effect until the next debugging session. The second warnings lets you know that Edit and Continue is disabled when collecting Call Information, so if you like to use Edit and Continue, you can’t collect Call Information.
The Advanced tab allows you to control some of the more advanced options around IntelliTrace. Whenever IntelliTrace runs, it creates a .iTrace file. These files are deleted when you close Visual Studio. The Advanced tab can be used to set the location of the files, as well as the maximum file size.
There are also three checkbox options on this screen:
- Display the navigation gutter while in debug mode – The navigation gutter is a control that we will look at in a future post, that can be used for navigating through your code and the IntelliTrace data.
- Enable Team Foundation Server symbol path lookup – If you have an iTrace file that is configured with the correct Team Build information, then when this box is checked, IntelliTrace can automatically pull down the PDB files for the build related to this IntelliTrace iTrace file.
- Prompt to enable source server support – If this box is checked, then when you open an IntelliTrace iTrace file that has PDBs that support source server lookup, you will be prompted, asking if you want to use them or not.
The IntelliTrace Events tab is used to configure what events debug information will be collected on. You have the ability to enable blocks of events, or individual events. Consider carefully what events you enable, as you do not want to cause any more performance degradation than is necessary.
Finally, the last tab is the Modules tab. This tab allows you to control what modules you collect information over. If you collected information over EVERYTHING, then you would build up way too much data, and would be pretty much overwhelmed. This tab allows you to exclude certain modules, or only include certain modules, allowing you to tailor your debugging efforts. By default, all the Microsoft .NET binaries are blocked.
So, in touring through these options, I need to play with IntelliTrace for both just event collecting, as well as event and call collecting. I may or may not want to play around with Team Build, to see how it pulls down the PDBs automatically. And I’ll definitely want to enable some more IntelliTrace events for some of my examples. I’m a big fan of creating simple console applications for my demos, so I suspect I’ll be turning on some of the console events. And to wrap things up, I should also play with the inclusion/exclusion of modules.
Ok, now I have a gameplan. Next, I’m going to create a simple console application and do some “IntelliTracing” on it.
If you are going to be in the Washington D.C. area on April 28th, and you want to learn more about both Scrum, and how to utilize Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010, then you really need to attend the free 1-day seminar, “Agile Scrum Development Practices with the Experts”.
This event is being hosted by Ken Schwaber, one of the co-founders of the Scrum process, as well as Richard Hundhausen, who, in addition to his many qualifications, has helped develop the official Microsoft “Professional Scrum Developer” course.
Here is an excerpt from the seminar information:
Please join us for this exciting, free event where will explore the Scrum methodology, real-world examples and how you can adopt a more Agile approach to software projects leveraging Microsoft Team Foundation Sever for development projects on any platform.
Both of these guys really know their stuff, so go register for the course and check it out. Then, if you want to learn even more, come to my session at Codestock on Scrum and Team Foundation Server 2010.
So the first day of MMS 2011 is now behind us. It went really well. It focused mostly on Instructor Led Labs, with some break-out sessions. I attended the session on SCOM MP Design, as well as using Data Protection Manager to bring back your Datacenter. Both sessions were delivered very well, and I learned some cool content in both.
Last night was also the opening expo. Infront has a booth (#346) at the show, and all of us were out in force to talk to customers and let them know all the ways that Infront could help them. Believe it or not, even though you are on your feet for hours, this is probably the most fun part of the show. I love getting to talk to old and potential new customers. There is nothing like seeing the light go on in their eyes as you begin explaining some of the things Infront has done with System Center, and how we might be able to help them.
I also had several former students from the classes I teach come up and talk with me. It gives you quite a good feeling to realize that you made a strong enough impression that they remember you a year later, and have made a special effort to come by the booth and say hello.
After the expo, it was back to the “Infront Crib” to plan for Day 2, and get a little work done. Unfortunately, work life (or life in general) doesn’t completely stop for any conference.
For Day 2 my plan is:
- Work our Infront Booth from 12:30 PM to 2 PM. Come by and talk with me! Tell me you read this on the blog! Come tell me your System Center woes, and let me see what we can do to help you turn those into successes.
- Attend BRK BG01 – Using Service Manager for Incident, Change, and Problem Management – Starts at 10:15
- Attend BRK BB03 – Operations Manager 2012 Overview – Starts at 2:15
- Attend BRK BB04 – Operations Manager 2012 Setup and Configuration – Starts at 4
I LOVE this opportunity to network with people, so come by the booth and say hi. Or send me at email (mickey underscore gousset at hotmail dot com) and let’s set something up. Or following me on twitter mickey_gousset and DM me there. I’d love the chance to talk with you, see how you are using System Center, and see how we might be able to help you take that to the next level.
Day 2 here I come!
System Center Service Manager is a new product that Microsoft released last year to handle incident/problem/change management. Currently the latest version is System Center Service Manager SP1, and there is a Cumulative Update for SP1 that you should grab as well.
A strong ecosystem is starting to spring up around this product, with tools and connectors that fill needs not build into the product. To find the latest list of these items, you need to do to the SCSM 2010 Downloads page. Here you can find a list of the latest tools and add-ons from Microsoft, as well as third-party vendors. The Microsoft Exchange connector, and the Powershell Cmdlets are definitely worth it to download and install.
After a couple of year hiatus from blogging at Geeks With Blogs, I’m back! I’m still blogging about Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 over at Team System Rocks (soon to undergo some major revisions), so expect to see some cross postings from there.
Here though, I expect to focus on System Center technologies (mostly System Center Operations Manager and System Center Service Manager, with some of the others thrown in there too, as that is my day job now.. I’ll also use this blog to start tracking my foray into Windows Phone 7 development. I’ve decided to go the game programming route first.
So, Team System Rocks is about to undergo a facelift in a couple of months. And I would LOVE to have a new logo for the site. However, I am "graphically impaired". So I thought I would see if there was anyone out there who could create me a new logo. And what better way to generate interest than with a contest?
So, here is the deal: Team System Rocks needs a new logo. I will use the logo on the site, and maybe on any materials I may make in the future (such as T-shirts, etc...). As far as what I want or don't want in a logo, I have no idea. Surprise me.
So, what do you win: A copy of Visual Studio Team Suite with a year subscription to MSDN Premium.
So, when does the contest end: August 31st, 2008
Send all contest entries to me at mickey_gousset@.hotmail.com. I'll announce the winner and unveil the new logo with the new facelift of Team System Rocks.
Let the games begin!
GeekFest Party at TechEd 2008 Developer Conference
Let’s face it, going to technical conferences is good for your career, but it’s not a whole lot of fun. What you need is an outlet. You need to have fun. That’s where we step in.
Cheap beer and lousy pizza!
We are bringing back GeekFest! Join us at Howl at the Moon
for a night of lousy pizza, cheap beer, dueling pianos, socializing and one wild rubber duck competition….yes, a rubber duck competition.
There is limited invitations available, so what are you waiting for. If you are attending the TechEd 2008 Developer Conference you can pre-register here.
Register and pick up your "duck" ticket in the TechEd Technical Learning Center (TLC) at the Developer Tools & Languages (TLA) information desk. You must have a "dick" ticket to get into the party. One "duck" admits up to two people.
When:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 from 7:00 PM -10:00 PM ET
Where
Howl at the Moon, 8815 International Drive, Orlando, FL 32819
Ticketing
You must have a "duck" ticket to attend the party. One duck admits two.
http://www.sweeptheleg.com
If you remember the original Karate Kid movie at all, I promise you this is worth 7 minutes of your time.
The Cassini space probe has found evidence of seas on Titan, a moon of Saturn:
Saturn's moon Titan appears to have large seas filled with liquid gas, according to data collected by the Cassini space probe, scientists said Tuesday.
Liquid Gas? Anyone else find it hard to wrap their head around that? Of course, the seas are most likely composed of methane and ethane, so it probably wouldn't be that much fun to swim in anyway. And I'll bet the beach would really suck.
I found this over at Digg.com. Jeff Atwood has provided more detail than you could ever imagine on this problem:
To be perfectly clear, this isn't a Windows problem-- it's an x86 hardware problem. The memory hole is quite literally invisible to the CPU, no matter what 32-bit operating system you choose.
Jeff does a great job with charts and everything to explain why your Windows desktop will only see 3 GBs or so of RAM. Definitely worth a read if you have ever wondered about this question.