Using Process Monitor for Troubleshooting

Some of the more difficult cases to solve are the ones that are caused by a conflict with another application, or a rogue permission issue.  These are typically computer-specific, or perhaps specific to one’s network environment.  Two of Microsoft’s gurus (Mark Russinovich & Bryce Cogswell) have released a utility called Process Monitor.  This is a real-time visual of what is going on with your machine, and is a great tool to help troubleshoot these issues.

 

You can download and read more about this utility here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx 

First, you need to set up the Process Monitor to filter out everything except the acad.exe process.  See this screenshot.

When you first launch it, you will be greeted with the Filter dialog box.  You can also get to this at a later point, by selecting the diamond-like icon.  The filter you wan to add is:  Process Is Acad.exe  (This is a starting point, there may be times where you want to remove this filter, or add another filter, instead.)

The icons on the right are for deciding which things, you would like to monitor.  I suggest starting with only the Registry checked.  This will keep you final log smaller, and easier to sort through.  Of course, if the problem isn’t found there, then move on to searching File Activity, as well.

Now, to begin using this tool.

1. Start Civil 3D and get yourself to the point just prior to where the problem happens (crash, error, hang, etc)
2. Hit the Clear button on Process Monitor
3. Hit the Capture (start/stop) button to begin logging all the events.
4. You will need to move fast at this point.  Go back into Civil 3D and continue your workflow to create the problem.
5. As soon as you have reproduced the problem, hit the Capture (start/stop) button again to stop the capture.
6. At this point, you now have a (very) long list of operations that happened.  I would suggest that you search for the word FAILED as a starting point.  This will point out any obvious issues.

That’s all there is to it.  Hopefully, you will find this helpful when trying to troubleshoot system-specific problems.

By the way, Mark Russinovich is one smart dude.  :)  I have continually relied on his blog for a wealth of Windows-related information.  If you enjoy that sort of thing, you can follow his blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/

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