Capturing debug and diagnostic logging from WZC for wireless NICs

Summary

Windows Zero Configuration (WZC) is the Windows service that automatically configures 802.11 wireless network devices. Adapter manufacturers and NDIS miniport developers for those adapters may find additional diagnostic information from the WZC service helpful.

This article describes how to capture a very verbose log (one that is set to maximum output) from WZC.

More Information

To use the additional tracing capabilities that are built into WZC, install the checked build of Wzcsvc.dll on the test system. The trace will be written out to a log file on disk. Therefore, you do not have to hook up a Kernel debugger (for example, WinDbg) or install the whole checked build of the operating system.

If you are not using a complete checked build of the OS, you must obtain a copy of the binary Wzcsvc.dll from a system that is using a complete checked build of the OS.

Note To obtain the checked build on CD, you can subscribe to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). For more information about subscriptions, visit the following Web site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx To capture a log from WZC that is less than maximum output, follow these steps:

1. Before you load the binary on the test system, you must disable System File Protection (SFP).
   
   To disable SFP, press F8 while the system is starting, and then select Safe Mode when you receive a prompt. Replace the file, and then restart the system.

2. With the checked binary of Wzcsvc.dll in place (either because you are running a complete checked OS or because you replaced it), set the following registry entry to 1:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Tracing\WZCTrace\EnableFileTracing (REG_DWORD)

3. If any portion of the hive location does not exist, create the hives that you want (for example, Tracing and WZCTrace may not exist).

4. To effect the changes to tracing, either restart the system, or stop and start the service. The service creates the log file WZCTrace in the %windir%\Tracing folder.

5. Disable WZC tracing by setting
   EnableFileTracing to zero.

6. By default, tracing output is set to maximum output. To tailor how much information is produced, you can create the registry entry FileTracingMask (REG_DWORD) using one or more of the following values (and OR them together as you need).

   0x80000000: Logs failed ASSERTs
   0x01000000: Logs 'State Machine' events
   0x00800000: Logs synchronization events
   0x00400000: Logs storage events
   0x00200000: Logs notifications
   0x00100000: Logs hash related activities
   0x00080000: Logs error conditions
   0x00040000: Logs memory allocations and releases
   0x00020000: Logs code path within WZCSVC
   0x00010000: Logs generic events
   0xFFFF0000: (default) logs all events
   

   Note These flags may change.

References

For more information, visit the following MSDN Web sites:

Obtaining the checked build
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms792429.aspx

Using the checked build of Windows
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms792436.aspx