The project homepage is at https://wtrace.net.
Wtrace [spelled: wɪtreɪs] is a command-line tool for recording trace events from the Operating System or a group of processes. Wtrace may collect, among others, File I/O and Registry operations, TPC/IP connections, and RPC calls. Its purpose is to give you some insights into what is happening in the system.
Additionally, it has various filtering capabilities and may also dump statistics at the end of the trace session. As it's just a standard command-line tool, you may pipe its output to another tool for further processing.
It works on Windows 8.1+ and requires .NET 4.7.2+. Wtrace is just one executable, wtrace.exe, and you may download it from the release page or install it with Chocolatey: choco install wtrace.
The available options are listed below. Please check the wtrace documentation page to learn details about them with some usage examples.
Usage: wtrace [OPTIONS] [pid|imagename args]
Options:
-f, --filter=FILTER Displays only events which satisfy a given FILTER.
(Does not impact the summary)
--handlers=HANDLERS Displays only events coming from the specified HANDLERS.
-c, --children Collects traces from the selected process and all its
children.
--newconsole Starts the process in a new console window.
-s, --system Collect only system statistics (Processes and DPC/ISR)
- shown in the summary.
--nosummary Prints only ETW events - no summary at the end.
-v, --verbose Shows wtrace diagnostics logs.
-h, --help Shows this message and exits.
A sample trace session might look as follows:
PS temp> .\wtrace.exe notepad
wtrace v3.0.0 - collects process or system traces
Copyright (C) 2021 Sebastian Solnica (lowleveldesign.org)
Visit https://wtrace.net to learn more
HANDLERS
process, file, rpc, tcp
Preparing the realtime trace session. Please wait...
Tracing session started. Press Ctrl + C to stop it.
19:47:42.9656 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x20 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9704 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/FSControl 'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' class info: 0x900EB -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9713 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/QueryInfo 'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' class info: 0x5 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9715 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Read 'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' offset: 0, size: 12288 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9713 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Read 'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' offset: 0, size: 9947 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9794 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Create 'D:\temp\' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x21 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9808 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/QueryInfo '<0xFFFFCD064B771CE0>' class info: 0x9 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9809 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/QueryInfo '<0xFFFFCD064B771CE0>' class info: 0x9 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9810 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/QueryInfo '<0xFFFFCD064B9FB700>' class info: 0x9 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9823 notepad (13712.27256) Thread/Start
19:47:42.9824 notepad (13712.26824) Thread/Start
19:47:42.9828 notepad (13712.25724) Thread/Start
19:47:42.9838 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\notepad.exe.Local\' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x200000 -> OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND
19:47:42.9839 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x21 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9840 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x200000 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9840 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/QueryInfo 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' class info: 0x4 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9840 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Cleanup 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9841 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Close 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9841 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x60 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9845 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Cleanup 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9845 notepad (13712.25724) FileIO/Close 'C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_6595b64144ccf1df_6.0.19041.746_none_ca02b4b61b8320a4\COMCTL32.dll' -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9860 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Create 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMM32.DLL' disposition: OPEN_EXISTING, options: 0x200000 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9860 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/QueryInfo 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMM32.DLL' class info: 0x4 -> SUCCESS
19:47:42.9860 notepad (13712.24820) FileIO/Cleanup 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\IMM32.DLL' -> SUCCESS```
...
Process (13712) exited.
Closing the trace session. Please wait...
--------------------------------
Processes
--------------------------------
├─ notepad [13712]
--------------------------------
File I/O
--------------------------------
'C:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE' Total: 32768B, Writes: 0B, Reads: 32768B
'C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NOTEPAD.EXE-C5670914.pf' Total: 19894B, Writes: 0B, Reads: 19894B
'C:\Windows\Fonts\staticcache.dat' Total: 60B, Writes: 0B, Reads: 60B
--------------------------------
RPC
--------------------------------
fb8a0729-2d04-4658-be93-27b4ad553fac (lsapolicylookup) [0] calls: 4
fb8a0729-2d04-4658-be93-27b4ad553fac (lsapolicylookup) [1] calls: 4
fb8a0729-2d04-4658-be93-27b4ad553fac (lsapolicylookup) [5] calls: 4
e60c73e6-88f9-11cf-9af1-0020af6e72f4 (epmapper) [0] calls: 2
fb8a0729-2d04-4658-be93-27b4ad553fac (lsapolicylookup) [2] calls: 2
e60c73e6-88f9-11cf-9af1-0020af6e72f4 (epmapper) [6] calls: 2