Oh for dtrace in XP

I’m into astronomy. I’m currently doing an MSc in it. But mainly I like it as a hobby, usually just observing but also imaging. Most astrophotography software is written for windows (MaximDL, Registax, ImagesPlus), the pros will use IRAF but that’s overkill for most of what I do.

Earlier in the year I got a canon 350D (digital rebel XT to the yanks). And most useful processing tools for regular images are windows only also (canon’s software, picassa).

Now I know about UNIX tools. I’m probably more familiar with GIMP than any of the above mentioned tools. However since I’m stuck with needing to boot the laptop into windows occasionally, at the encouragement of some astronomy friends I decided to give Photoshop CS2 a whirl. I’ve used the free version that you get with scanners etc. Before, and to be honest I’d rather use gimp. But since adobe give you a 30 day trial I though I’d try it.

The download didn’t take too long, not as long as the install actually. But after a mug of tea it was time to fire up Photoshop. It started. It displayed its window. It displayed its splash screen and text about loading preferences, loading plugins etc. Then when it all seemed done I clicked on “File” to load an image.

The program appears to halt and the helpful “Program not responding” appears.

Perhaps the old version of photoshop that was installed was interfering. Remove all photoshops and install CS2 again. Same result.

Perhaps its just my user. Log in as another user. Same result.

Perhaps its services. Run msconfig start in diagnostic mode. Same result.

Delete any preferences files. Same result.

Fire up dtrace and see what the hell Photoshop is doing taking up 92% of my CPU and 55Mb of memory. Oh wait…

I dont know much about windows administration or debugging so off to the internet to find information on “windows xp diagnosis”. Google’s first match was this technet article.

This is a interesting, but useless document. Its entitled “Windows XP: The Rock of Reliability”. I’ll give XP one thing. Its only crashed on me once, a monumental improvement on earlier versions. However the author goes on to make some interesting comments. Some of which tell me things that I assumed windows had always done like having versioning in DLL’s. Some were new, they have a list of device drivers that they know will break your system (we just badpatch drivers like that, if the driver even made it to being a patch before being caught). Though this document told me lots about how XP attempts to stop you shooting yourself in the foot, and all the new ways they have to help you recover from the bulletwound, I don’t think the article deserves the title “Windows XP: The Rock of Reliability”. Neverthless a comment about diagnosis being a part of reliability spurred me on to a document that promised more help, Reliability Improvements in Windows XP Professional. I only have the home edition but it looked promising.

Here is what that document has to say about unresponsive programs:

“The application window has been improved in Windows XP to allow you to easily close applications that are unresponsive..”

Great. The rock of reliability has made it easier to close unresponsive programs. Thanks.

Lets try searching for “windows XP instrumentation” instead. The first match tells me how to back up the registry. The second how to use the system restore utility. Not quite what I need.

All I want is a simple way to truss what photoshop is doing on my CPU!

If Microsoft have made it easier to kill unresponsive programs surely it must be happening often enough that someone somewhere might actually want to examine why the programs are not responding. There must be some way of doing this in XP? Answers on a postcard…