Work Stuff

Apparently, I'm encouraged to and supposed to talk about what I do at work
some in the blog. Well, we can't divulge sensitive information.

Okay. Work related, huh? Here's something.

I got a DVD ROM image from a large department store IT group a few weeks back.
It had <NAME OF DEPT STORE> CONFIDENTIAL written in hand all over the DVD ROM.

Like what, we have spies from other department stores to worry about?
Uh oh. Be on the look out for those department store IT spies. You know,
the guys seeking the CONFIDENTIAL information about the other department stores.

Maybe they're having a special sale! Whoo hoo!

Anyway, having the DVD image to restore on a lab computer is really one of
the best ways I have of solving problems. This customer has a Microsoft service
that's not starting when Windows XP starts up.

Using Publically Documented information, I moved the service from where it
was running under SVCHOST.EXE with a number of other services to where it runs under
its own SVCHOST.EXE. How? I can't remember as that was this morning and
now is this afternoon. But I did.  

The problem still occurs, but now, when I break into that instance of SVCHOST.EXE
(as it's attempting to load that service that's not loading), I get two threads with
a simple stack each to look at. Makes it much, much easier for me to see what's
going on. Of course, I have no clue what's going on. I have to figure
this out.

Interestingly enough, if another, third-party service that's running is disabled,
this problem doesn't occur. Neither service is running in the same process.
What does that mean? Who knows. I would *love* to be able to blame the
problem on the other, third-party service, but I can't without first figuring out
what's going on.

I guess that's why I get all those dollars -- figure out the tough stuff.
I'm a hundredaire you know. I have like $100.00 or more in the bank now.
I wonder if I can tell people I have a hundred dollars in the bank in a blog?
I hope so.

Anyway, if I can recreate my steps to moving the service into it's own process,
I'll post them 'cause that might be interesting to you and I figured it out from a
single KB article that's public.