Reconfiguring and Restarting a Session

Session reconfiguration enables you to work with your data until you find the messaging context and data presentation format that helps you resolve the issue on which you are working.

Reconfigure a Browse Session
After importing saved data, you can return to the original Browse Session and reconfigure it to do one or more of the following:

  • Import and aggregate additional information from other saved data files, such as logs and traces.

  • Select a different set of files in the Import files list, for which you want to view data.

  • Choose, create, or modify a Filter Expression and add it as a Selection Filter, in order to apply filtering criteria that is specifically tailored for all data to be imported in the updated Browse Session.

  • Configure a Time Filter to select data in a specific window of time only.

You can return to an original Browse Session configuration to modify it by selecting a data viewer tab for the session, for example, an Analysis Grid viewer tab, and clicking the Configuration button in the Session group on the Ribbon of the Message Analyzer Home tab. After you modify a Browse Session and you are ready to apply the changes that you specified, click the Apply Changes button in the Browse Session configuration. Thereafter, Message Analyzer automatically reimports data based on the files that you checked in the Import files list and applies any other changes that you configured, such as adding a Selection Filter or Time Filter.

Reconfigure a Trace Session
Consider that you can also reconfigure an existing Trace Session by creating or modifying a Trace Filter expression, or by adding other system ETW providers. Other modifications you can make when reconfiguring a Trace Session configuration include the following:

  • Specifying advanced settings for provider configurations that enable you to:

    — Capture data directionally on a specified network adapter, for example, in a Local Link Layer Trace Scenario.

    — Configure a single Fast Filter or several logically-chained Fast Filters for a provider, for example, in a Local Link Layer scenario.

    — Capture remote traffic on host adapters or on one or more virtual machines (VMs) that are serviced by a Hyper-V-Switch on a remote Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 host, along with specifying NDIS layer and Hyper-V-Switch extension layer packet traversal paths and other special filtering configurations.

  • Add other system ETW providers to focus on the events of a particular component.

  • Change certain system ETW provider capture settings, such as Keyword filter and event Level.

  • Optimize the ETW Session Configuration with the use of the Advanced Configuration dialog in the Trace Session configuration interface.

You can return to your original Trace Session configuration to modify it by selecting a data viewer tab for the session, for example an Analysis Grid viewer tab, and clicking the Configuration button in the Session group on the Ribbon of the Message Analyzer Home tab. After you modify a Trace Session and you are ready to proceed with your specified changes, click the Apply Changes button in the Trace Session configuration. Message Analyzer then displays the data viewer that you initially chose for your trace results, with the Restart arrow enabled in the Session group on the Ribbon. To restart the Trace Session and apply the changes that you specified in the Trace Session configuration, click the Restart arrow. Message Analyzer then starts recollecting trace data and displays it in the current data viewer, based on the revised session configuration.

More Information
To learn more about adding and modifying providers, see Adding a System ETW Provider and Modifying Provider Settings.
To learn more about optimizing your ETW session configuration, see Specifying Advanced Session Configuration Settings.