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Category Archives: Performance
63 Cores Blocked by Seven Instructions
I seem to have a habit of writing about super powerful machines whose many cores are laid low by misuse of locks. So. Yeah. It’s that again. But this one seems particularly impressive. I mean, how often do you have … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming, Quadratic, uiforetw, xperf
Tagged ETW, ntfs, wpa
12 Comments
O(n^2) in CreateProcess
So many possible introductions to this one: Windows 7: Sheesh, I sure am slow at creating processes Windows 10: Hold my beer… Or how about: A) How long does CreateProcess take on Windows? B) How long would you like it … Continue reading
When Your Profiler Lies
Last week I wrote about the performance consequences of inadvertently loading gdi32.dll into processes that are created and destroyed at very high rates. This week I want to share some techniques for digging deeper into this behavior, and the odd … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming, uiforetw, xperf
Tagged GDI, process shutdown, UserCrit
12 Comments
A Not-Called Function Can Cause a 5X Slowdown
Subtitle: Making Windows Slower Part 3: Process Destruction In the summer of 2017 I wrestled with a Windows performance problem. Process destruction was slow, serialized, and was blocking the system input queue, leading to repeated short mouse-movement hangs when building … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming
Tagged GDI, process shutdown, UserCrit
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Making Windows Slower Part 2: Process Creation
Windows has long had a reputation for slow file operations and slow process creation. Have you ever wanted to make these operations even slower? This weeks’ blog post covers a technique you can use to make process creation on Windows … Continue reading
Posted in Code Reliability, Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming, Quadratic
Tagged Application Verifier, crashing, pageheap
7 Comments
24-core CPU and I can’t type an email (part two)
In my last post I promised to give more details about some rabbit holes that I went down during the investigation, including page tables, locks, WMI, and a vmmap bug. Those details are here, along with updated code samples. But … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, memory, Performance
Tagged cfg, chrome, control flow guard, vmmap
16 Comments
24-core CPU and I can’t type an email (part one)
I wasn’t looking for trouble. I wasn’t trying to compile a huge project in the background (24-core CPU and I can’t move my mouse), I was just engaging in that most mundane of 21st century tasks, writing an email at … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, memory, Performance
Tagged cfg, chrome, control flow guard, vmmap
28 Comments
Making Windows Slower Part 1: File Access
Windows has long had a reputation for slow file operations and slow process creation. Have you ever wanted to make these operations even slower? This weeks’ blog post covers a technique you can use to make all file operations on … Continue reading
Posted in Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming, xperf
Tagged FileSystemWatcher, notifications, Windows
18 Comments
Zombie Processes are Eating your Memory
Zombies probably won’t consume 32 GB of your memory like they did to me, but zombie processes do exist, and I can help you find them and make sure that developers fix them. Tool source link is at the bottom. … Continue reading
Posted in Debugging, Investigative Reporting, Performance, Programming, Rants
Tagged handles, leaks, zombies
74 Comments