{"id":9491,"date":"2015-05-14T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T15:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/visualstudioalm\/2015\/05\/14\/collect-data-from-a-windows-service-using-the-intellitrace-standalone-collector\/"},"modified":"2022-08-01T01:15:18","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T09:15:18","slug":"collect-data-from-a-windows-service-using-the-intellitrace-standalone-collector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/collect-data-from-a-windows-service-using-the-intellitrace-standalone-collector\/","title":{"rendered":"Collect data from a windows service using the IntelliTrace Standalone Collector"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this blog post I am going to walk you through how to collect data from a windows service using the IntelliTrace Standalone Collector<\/a>. For the purpose of this post I will be using a windows service I created called \u201cMyWindowsService\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Note:<\/strong> If you already have Visual Studio installed on the machine the windows service is running you don\u2019t necessarily need to follow this guide because IntelliTrace now supports attach<\/a>! Simply attach to the running windows service using Visual Studio<\/a> and IntelliTrace will start collecting data and showing it in the Diagnostic Tools window just like it does when you debug using F5. The only caveat is that you cannot collect calls information when you are attaching, you can only collect events. If you want to collect calls information you\u2019ll need to follow this guide instead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Step 1 \u2013 Download the IntelliTrace Standalone Collector<\/h2>\n

Download the latest version of the IntelliTrace Standalone Collector<\/a>. Don\u2019t worry about the version of Visual Studio you have, it\u2019s backwards compatible. What you get is a self-extracting .exe file and if you run it you will get an IntelliTraceCollection.cab file copied to a folder of your choice. I chose the folder C:IntelliTrace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Step 2 \u2013 Extract the .cab file<\/h2>\n

Use the following command to expand the .cab file (yes, the dot at the end is necessary):
\n**expand \/f:* IntelliTraceCollection.cab . **<\/p>\n

I used the above command to extract everything into the directory C:IntelliTrace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Step 3 \u2013 Configure your collection plan XML file<\/h2>\n

The collection plan is the compilation of all settings that tell IntelliTrace what data to collect while the windows service is running:<\/p>\n

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  1. What interesting events to collect<\/li>\n
  2. Whether to collect method calls and parameters<\/li>\n
  3. Whether to whitelist or blacklist certain assemblies<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The .cab file contains two collection plans out of the box:<\/p>\n