What is Windows Performance Analyzer all about and why should you use it instead of xperfview?

Consider the following trace in xperfview:

This should be familiar to you, it’s the DPC storm / storport doorbell that looks like this:

So how does this trace look in WPA from the Windows 8 ADK (RP edition)?

A little different, but the Dude isn’t closed minded here, so lets give it a whirl:

Observe.  With that LSI_SAS selected, we see the time frame on the top middle where the CPU was doing work in that module.  and See the stack?  Which view is more in-depth?  WPA is the frickin future man.  I was a doubting Thomas 100%.  But WPA takes xperfview to a whole ‘nother level of magic.

And the Dude believes!

Hats off to Michael Milirud and the Windows Performance Toolkit team.  Seriously folks.  Job well done.

Another example, why does WINLOGON INIT take so long?

How cool is that?  We can see CCMEXEC took 8 seconds, its simple to just scroll down the list and see exactly why WINLOGON INIT took so long, and triage it.

I LOVE IT!

I’m going to build some broken scenarios in my lab and do some more examples of how-tos…