Quick Start

Introduction

The following is a brief example of using Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA) to identify factors that can influence CPU processor power usage. This example is not a complete review of WPA function or CPU power management. It is meant to give the first time user of WPA a high level overview of the product and some of the product function provided. For a complete review of WPA, see the MSDN article located at Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA). For more information on how to use CPU processor power function, see theHow To Use CPU Processor Power Management.

Terms

The following table defines WPA terms that we use in this example.

WPA Term	Usage
Event Tracing for Windows - ETW	A Windows infrastructure that makes kernel and application events or state changes available for collection and analysis. For more information on ETW, see Windows Events.
Kernel Flags	Options enumerated when invoking Xperf.exe. These options specify what kernel events are included in the trace.
Kernel Groups	Sets of options that have been logically grouped to simplify passing of kernel options to Xperf.exe.
NT Kernel Logger	The NT Kernel Logger trace session generates a trace of Windows kernel events. For more information on NT Kernel Logger, see NT Kernel Logger Trace Session.
Provider	A kernel or application component that makes events available for capture.
Trace files or etl files	Contain data produced by WPA. Individual trace files may be merged with other trace files to include events gathered in other sessions.
Xerfview.exe	Presents trace content in the form of interactive graphs and summary tables.
Xperf.exe	Captures and processes traces and supports trace analysis.