PROFILE27 - Checking app pools are running

Brian Donahue

• Date: 9 Nov 2006
• Versions affected: ANTS Profiler 2.6+ in conjunction with Windows Server 2003

ANTS Profiler 2.6 uses a different method for profiling ASP .NET websites on Microsoft IIS version 6 than it does on Windows XP. In IIS6, web applications are run inside application pools, which can conceivably be started independently of IIS. ANTS Profiler uses this method to negate the need for restarting IIS, resulting in quicker application starts and less potential for error.

If an error occurs in the application being profiled by ANTS Profiler, the application pool process may stop running. To determine if this is true, you can use a Microsoft VBScript to determine if the web application being profiled by ANTS Profiler is still running.

To do this, open a command prompt and change directory (cd) to %systemroot%\system32. Next, run

cscript iisapp.vbs

This will respond with the currently-running application pools on the server. If ANTS Profiler is working correctly, something similar to the following will be shown:

W3WP.exe PID: 1232 AppPoolId: RedGateTestAppPool

On versions of ANTS previous to 2.7, the app pool may be called StandAloneAppPool.