My app installs the visual Studio C++ runtimes on a remote machine as a prerequisite for another installation. On Windows 2003 when I upgrade to the latest patch of the VS 2005 C++ runtimes the upgrade appears to stall after the embedded MSI package has been run. The fix was to use the /Q:A rather than the /Q argument to the vcredist.exe bootstrapper.
Running the same command from a command prompt doesn't cause the modal dialog box to appear, so it's appear impossible to inspect the dialog box and reassure myself that I'm not just masking another problem.
Anyone got any tips for viewing dialog boxes in other window stations or sessions (currently the dialog is in session 0).
I think you cannot really view the dialog box. However, you can either try to attach and debug the application when it is frozen or attach and generate a dump of the application.
You must run your debugger as an administrator to attach to the process in session 0. In your case, I think you should look for msiexec.exe processes running in session 0.
You should be able to find the thread displaying the dialog box.
To inspect the contents of the dialog box, may be Spy++ will do the trick (not sure it is able to find windows in another session)
Related
I use the RestartAPI to restart my application if I need to reload it. It works fine until I launch any Windows dialog (e.g. Open Dialogue), which ends with Open button being clicked! In this case, if I later choose to restart the new application (after restarting) will not be able to open ANY files. If I click Cancel button the new restarted application will work just fine.
It took me a long time to figure out that the difference between the two restarts is the Open button with some Open Dialog that is completely unrelated to the application restart. Note that I have eliminated the code that gets executed after the Open button is clicked so there's no way that it could be caused by some memory corrupting code that the Open button just initiates.
It is enough to click the Open button once (so I may 5 times click Cancel than once Open and than for example 3 times Cancel) and any attempt to restart the application however "late" will result in the new instance not being able to open any files (not even with std::ifstream).
Some details:
Visual Studio 2010
Windows 7 x64 (but with 32bit XP it is the same)
the dialog is launched in a separate thread
I use Allegro 5.0 for graphics but that should not be related
The dialog is launched by GetOpenFileName function
I don't know about RestartAPI, but you can create temporary batch file which will restart the process without any problems.
I'm trying to debug a VS 2008 command-line application running under Windows XP. The application has been crashing (access violation), and I am catching the crsah in the debuuger. After looking at the call stack, etc., I tell the IDE to "Stop Debugging". The application window remains, but the process does not appear in Task Manager. Nothing happens when I click the "X" in the upper-right corner, though I can minimze / restore the window. The process is normally shut down by pressing Esc. It does not respond to this keypress.
I cannot even get rid of the application window by attempting to reboot XP. The machine will not reboot; it simply ignores my command to do so.
The only way I've been able to get rid of the application window is to do a hard power cycle. Ughh...
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to clean up this lingering application window after the application crashes?
Thanks,
Dave
TL;DR - How does the Spy++ tool really construct its process list?
Stage
We have an MFC desktop application (running on Windows XP) that is hanging in that it doesn't react to any user input anymore. It is redrawn when switching to it via alt-tab however. (It does receive WM_SETFOCUS, WM_ACTIVATE, etc. It apparently does not receive any mouse or keyboard messages.)
Since the app is hanging in some limbo, we pulled a few process dumps, but these were of little help so far. Enter:
Spy++
We used Spy++ to find the information I gave above about the window messages this application seems to be processing. We did this by Opening the Windows View and selecting our application Window and in the Messages properties selected Windows of same process and Messages to View : Select All.
However we first tried to view all messages of this process by opening the Processes View of Spy++ and our application is not shown in this process list. Cross checking on another PC where the app is running normally, the process is also normally shown in the processes list of Spy++.
Can anything about the misbehaving app be inferred from the fact that the process is not shown in Spy++'s Process View, but the main window of the app is shown in the Windows View. Why would a process with a main window that is visible not be shown in Spy++'s Processes View?
The process is listed in Task Manager and in the Attach Process Window of Visual Studio 2005. So these tools apparently use a different method to list processes than Spy++ ... ?
The system where the app is currently hanging is a Windows XP SP2 system and we've used the Spy++ Utility that comes with Visual Studio 2005.
The behavior does recur occasionally, but only after the App has been running for several days!
Running Vista or later? Your process is probably elevated and Spy++ is not. Newer versions of Spy++ require elevation. So, try elevating Spy++ explicitly and see if that helps.
Yes, of course things can be inferred from this. Don't take anything I say too seriously in this context, I'd have to go look at the code. But I believe that Spy goes off and looks at the EnumProcesses API. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682629.aspx)
So, if your process isn't showing up there... hrm.
But, what is different between the system where it's working and the one where it's not?
Spy++ requires the following two values in the registry to be disabled (0) to display the processes/threads list AT ALL:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\PerfProc\Performance
Disable Performance Counters -> either 0 or not present
Was going insane trying to find out why it refused to display them. It's some kind of bad joke - this debugger requires itself a debugger to get it working! Not that WinDBG would display any meaningful info, MS doesn't even provide a symbol file on their symbol server, pfft.
Anyway, maybe it doesn't display processes that have their performance counters disabled, because I think, this can be set on individual basis, at least for services, like:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\.NET CLR Networking\Performance
Disable Performance Counters
So it's basically always a value of the "Performance" subkey. All this stuff is undocumented, it makes use of advapi32.dll functions like "PerfRegQueryValue" and "PerfRegQueryInfoKey"... don't ask me.
I'm writing and then debugging a console application in VC++ 2008, it then happens that closing Visual Studio IDE, the console window remain opened, and there is no way to close it!
Also if I try a machine reboot the machine doesn't restart. The only way is turning off the power.
In the process list there are no signs of the console window.
If I try to investigate the console window with tools like Spy++ I found the window but in the "process" tab there is a process ID that doesn't exists, in the "General" tab the "window proc" field says "Unavailable".
How is it possible?
How can I kill those type of windows as there is no processe to kill?
thanks
Most annoying bug ever; get the hotfix.
When a breakpoint is hit in Visual Studio, it steals the focus from whatever other application the programmer is viewing/typing into at that moment. This can be very irritating since VS grabs any keyboard input the programmer was typing into the other application at that moment and takes that input as its own.
What are the tricks you folks use to prevent this focus steal?
(I face this on Visual C++ 2008 and 2010. I am guessing it is a problem for Visual Studio in general and for all recent versions.)
This is finally fixed in VS2019. Go to Tools->Options->Debugging->General, down at the bottom is "Bring Visual Studio to the foreground when breaking in the debugger."
Just de-select it and you will no longer be interrupted while multitasking.
This is a registry setting. See ForegroundLockTimeout at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957208.aspx. Zero allows applications to steal focus. TweakUI sets this value to 200000 when "Prevent applications from stealing focus" is checked.
For more control, download the Tweak UI utility of Powertoys for Windows XP. In the "General" tab, select "Focus" and check "Prevent applications from stealing focus".
Google search for ForegroundLockTimeout at http://www.google.com/search?q=ForegroundLockTimeout
Bing search for Prevent applications from stealing focus at http://www.bing.com/search?q=Prevent+applications+from+stealing+focus
Applications Stealing Focus on Windows XP at http://mycvs.org/archives/2004/11/16/applications-stealing-focus-on-windows-xp for screen capture of TweakUI.
Please Don't Steal My Focus, Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/12/please-dont-steal-my-focus.html
The strange thing is, there are
provisions built into the operating
system to protect us from badly
written, focus stealing applications.
The ForegroundLockTimeout registry
setting is expressly designed to
prevent applications from stealing
focus from the user. The OS silently
converts that inappropriate focus
stealing behavior into friendlier,
less invasive taskbar button flashing,
which is the subject of the
ForegroundFlashCount registry setting.
How To Prevent Programs from Stealing Focus in Windows XP at http://www.howtodothings.com/computers-internet/how-to-prevent-programs-from-stealing-focus-in-windows-xp
Right click the breakpoint and select When hit ... this will allow you to run a function when the breakpoint is hit. You can use this to print status messages to the output window. You application will keep focus.
By accident I discovered a workaround, which I've been using for a few years now and while I haven't tested it in 2008 and 2010, it certainly works in 2013, '15 & '17 and at least Windows 7 & 10.
It relies on the fact that Visual Studio will not steal focus if another Visual Studio instance is paused in execution. Obviously the only thing as special as VS is another VS. :-/
Open a second instance of VS with a simple project. Pause the execution of the project anyway you like (e.g. put a breakpoint on the first line of execution and debug), you can then simply minimise that VS and none of the VS instances you're actually using will steal focus.
This is is obviously a heavy weight solution, but if you have ample RAM (the CPU usage of the idle VS doesn't even register for me), it works well. I haven't tried it with inter-version instances (e.g. pausing in '13 to make '17 behave), but if that works you'll probably want to opt to use the older version instance as your "dummy" VS to cut down on resource use.
One workaround is to use OutputDebugString() function to output current state into the debugger output window. You just place Visual Studio in background, position the debugged program window so that the "Output" window is visible - and no focus transition ever happens.
You will perhaps want to use macros for conditional compilation so that tracing code is not included into the release builds.