Selecting a Trace Scenario

Message Analyzer provides the Message Analyzer Trace Scenarios asset collection Library which contains various built-in Trace Scenarios. These built-in scenarios typically expose common Message Analyzer usage scenarios that are optimized for capturing messages of specific types or at a particular network stack layer. They are all accessible by clicking the Select Scenario drop-down list on the Live Trace tab in the New Session dialog. You can also access any Trace Scenario that you have set to Favorite status in either of the following ways:

• Click the Favorite Scenarios item in the Message Analyzer File menu and then select a favorite scenario in the submenu that appears.

• Click a scenario in the Favorite Scenarios list on the Message Analyzer Start Page.

Note that whenever you select a Trace Scenario that has Favorite status, a Live Trace Session is immediately started with no additional session configuration required. This gives you a quick and convenient method for very quickly starting a Live Trace Session.

Setting Trace Scenarios as Favorites

You can set any Trace Scenario as a Favorite Scenario by clicking the Edit Favorites label on the Message Analyzer Start Page. When the Trace Scenario library displays, you can set a scenario as a Favorite by clicking the white star to the left of the scenario name, at which point, the star color changes to amber and the scenario is then added to the Favorite Scenarios list. You can undo the favorite status of any Trace Scenario by clicking the amber colored star, at which time the star color changes to white and the scenario is removed from the Favorite Scenarios list. You can also perform similar actions from the Select Scenario drop-down list in the New Session dialog.

Selecting a Built-In Trace Scenario

The built-in Trace Scenarios provide you with various predefined provider configurations in the following categories, as described in Built-In Trace Scenarios:

• Network

• Device

• System

• File Sharing

When you select a built-in Trace Scenario in any of these categories, the following items display in the ETW Providers list on the Live Trace tab of the New Session dialog:

• The names of the providers used in the scenario and an associated GUID that identifies each one that appears in the ETW Providers list.

• A Configure link that enables you to access the Advanced Settings dialog that provides configuration settings on the following tabs:

  • ETW Core — contains event Keyword and Level filter settings for any ETW Provider associated with the scenario.

  • Provider — contains filter or other settings for any provider that is associated with the scenario, for example, the Microsoft-Windows-NDIS-PacketCapture provider or any Microsoft-PEF provider.

  Note

  While the Advanced Settings dialog for Microsoft-PEF providers and the Microsoft-Windows-NDIS-PacketCapture provider will display both a Provider and ETW Core tab, most system ETW Providers that you add to Live Trace Session configuration from the Add System Providers dialog display an ETW Core tab only in the Advanced Settings dialog.

Selecting a Custom Configured Trace Scenario

If you select a custom created Trace Scenario template from the My Items category of the Trace Scenarios Library, all of the settings that you previously specified for the template are contained in your Live Trace Session configuration. This can include any combination of Microsoft-PEF providers, the Microsoft-Windows-NDIS-PacketCapture provider, system ETW Providers, event Keyword and error Level filter settings, Fast Filters, a Session Filter, a Parsing Level, advanced NDIS stack and Hyper-V-Switch extension layer filters, and so on. Note that you have the option to reconfigure and save any of these settings as required, before you run your custom Trace Scenario template again, as described in Using a Custom Trace Scenario Template.

After selecting a custom Trace Scenario, you have the option to either start capturing data immediately or to modify various provider settings and then start your Live Trace Session.

See Also

Built-In Trace Scenarios