SQL Profiler doubleclick does not open .trc files any more

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Whenever I double-click on a profiler trace *.trc file I get the error

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Unrecognized command line argument. All command line arguments will be ignored. ..Please run 'profiler.exe -?' to see a list of valid command line arguments.

I suspect this happened when I installed a component of Visual Studio called the ATL Trace Tool, which messed up my associations somehow.

 

To prove what’s going on, I used my favorite debugger WinDbg.exe to see what parameters were being passed into the process.

!peb is sufficient to show the parameters as follows:

CommandLine:  '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\PROFILER.EXE" "G:\files\SPID00128.TRC"'

Hmm, it didn’t put any switches in the command line. I read from Profiler.exe help with switch -? that the valid switches for passing a file name is –f or –F

Let’s try to fix this. Find a profiler .trc file and right click to bring up the Open With context menu…

 

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Reset the default program to open the .trc file back to SQL Server profiler.

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Voila! Now when I doubleclick a .trc it works.

To prove that it changes somethings after it worked, I attached the debugger, and did !peb this time.

By re-associating the file, the /f is added back into the command line parameters.

CommandLine:  '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\profiler.exe" /f"G:\files\SPID00128.TRC"'

 

This can be seen from the default associations as well… in Windows 7

Control Panel > Programs >Default Programs > Set Associations

Updates:

If you like more control than what Windows shows, there is a handy tool from this link which can give a richer experience to edit program associations in Windows 7. https://defaultprogramseditor.com/

Underneath the Win 7 covers I see this selection sets two registry keys

 1. The choice to associate a .trc file extension to sql profiler should live in this reg key (Start > run > regedit)

HKEY_USERS\<your sid>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\ .trc

There are 3 subkeys there:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.trc\OpenWithList

a = REG_SZ = PROFILER.exe

MRUList = REG_SZ = a

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.trc\OpenWithProgids

SQLServerProfilerTraceData = REG_NONE

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.trc\UserChoice

Progid = REG_SZ = SQLServerProfilerTraceData

  2. Then profiler has a default OPEN action - it knows how to open the file because the file name is passed as an argument - %1 with quotes (in case there are spaces in the current file name's path.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\PROFILER.EXE\shell\open\command

(default) = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\PROFILER.EXE" "%1"