Where is the CVCollectionCmd installer?

  • Article

Previously, I described how to use CVCollectionCmd to collect Concurrency Visualizer traces on a machine that lacks Visual Studio.  But where is the CVCollectionCmd installer?  This entry describes where to find the CVCollectionCmd installer and how to deploy it.

The answer to this question depends on whether you have a Visual Studio 11 DVD or whether you installed it from the web. 

Locating the Installer on the Visual Studio DVD

If you have the Visual Studio 11 DVD, you’ll find a top-level directory called “Concurrency Visualizer”.  The installer, “concvi_standalonecollection” is located here.

Locating the Installer When Visual Studio was Installed from the Web

If you do not have the Visual Studio 11 DVD, you can still obtain the installer for CVCollectionCmd.  Here is how:

  1. Locate the Visual Studio 11 installer.  In my case, I downloaded the installer to c:\users\my name\downloads and the installer is “vs_ultimate.exe”.  The installer name will vary depending on the SKU you installed.
  2. Open a command prompt, and navigate to the directory containing the Visual Studio 11 installer.
  3. Type <installer name> /layout.  For me, the installer name is “vs_ultimate.exe”, so I type “vs_ultimate.exe /layout”
  4. The dialog that appears will prompt you to choose a location where the downloaded files will be saved.  

This will download the non-installable files associated with Visual Studio 11.  Thus, after the download completes, you should now see a directory titled “Concurrency Visualizer” in the directory you specified during step 4.  This contains the CVCollectionCmd installer.

Deploying CVCollectionCmd

Now, you need to deploy CVCollectionCmd on the machine where you want to use it.

  1. Copy the installer, “concvi_standalonecollection.exe”, to the machine you want to run it on.
  2. Run the installer (you’ll need admin privileges).

(Note that using the installer is the recommended approach because it allows Microsoft to service CVCollectionCmd.  However, it may be possible to deploy the installer locally, and just xcopy the files to the machine on which you want to run CVCollectionCmd.)

You are now ready to use CVCollectionCmd.exe.  After deployment, this file is typically located under c:/Program Files/Microsoft Concurrency Visualizer Collection Tools (or c:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Concurrency Visualizer Collection Tools).

James Rapp – Parallel Computing Platform