Re: Reducing time to start application - .NET (Core and Framework) Discussion Boards

I am trying to make Crystal Reports work with my updated .Net applications. Everything has worked well with Crystal reports and my .net 1.1 apps and then I updated my app to .Net 2.0. Now no Crystal reports run at all.

I created a new .MSI as per info I got from MSN (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227349.aspx). I removed all of the Crystal reports merge files from the setup project and then built a new .msi but that didn't solve the problem.

Has anyone run into that situation and solved it or can anyone tell me what I amd doing wrong and what I should do to correct this problem?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Have you ever tried Google Notebook? After installing the software, it will add a button at the bottom-right corner of IE. Dose anybody know how to implement that ? Any reply is appreciated.

Thanks
R.Y.J

Please don't cross post.

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Hi I wrote some winforms app which seems to work but has very ugly problem - it needs near 30 seconds to start.
Application starts in 3 steps -
- splash window is initialized and shown
- main app window is initialized and shown
- splash is hidden.

There is no any data connection touch or any other similar operation at the start.
Measured times to start the app are:
1. splash is shown in 6 ( WTF | :WTF:

) seconds at first and is reduced to 4 seconds in next run
2. Main app window needs about 16 seconds to show.

I am mostly shocked by time to show the splash which is just plain, frameless window with some bitmap loaded from resources.

I have tried different tricks with the assemblies - signed them, added to the GAC and even precompiled, but it doesn't change situation in any significant way.

Time has been measured on my development machine which is Ahlon 2.2 GHz with 1.5BG of RAM so I don't think it is the hardware/os/environment problem.

Could anybody tell me what's wrong?
Any ideas are welcome - I'm getting mad on this Smile | :)

Thanx
H.

Hi H

Do you compile the application in Release mode?
This can change the startup time dramatically.

If you are already in release mode, then try inserting a few Trace lines here and there and add a System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener to your application, to find out where all those CPU cycles are going.

TextWriterTraceListener myTextListener = new TextWriterTraceListener(@"C:\debug.txt");
Trace.Listeners.Add(myTextListener);
 
// Write output to the file.
Trace.Write("BEFORE doing something - the time is: " + DateTime.Now);
...
Trace.Write("AFTER doing something - the time is: " + DateTime.Now);

Kind regards - Jakob

Kind regards - Jakob Cool | :cool:

*********************************************
Three kinds of people in the world:
- Those who can count..
- Those who can't!

10 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who understand binary
- Those who don't

Hi Jacob
I have tried 3 time measuring methods - user measured time, console output and JetBrains dotTrace.
dotTrace is most detailed, but it has huge influence on measured time.
Your method is probably best since, it has permanent storage of results - thank you for the idea Smile | :)

I have included it in my project and measured times are very similar to those posted before. But I have found something pretty interesting.
There is SplashForm creation in the Program.cs. The SplashForm is derived from NiceDialog class (which is some pre-customized form). Here is part of the log file created with Trace listeners:

2006-09-18 11:44:49; Start of creating splash form
2006-09-18 11:44:52; NiceDialog InitializeComponent start
2006-09-18 11:44:52; NiceDialog InitializeComponent end
2006-09-18 11:44:53; SplashForm InitializeComponent start
2006-09-18 11:44:53; SplashForm InitializeComponent ends

Following code is executed here:
Program.cs

Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}; Start of creating splash form", DateTime.Now));<br />
             SplashForm splash = new SplashForm();<br />
            splash.Show();<br />

NiceDialog.cs

<br />
        public NiceDialogForm()<br />
        {<br />
            Log("NiceDialog InitializeComponent start");<br />
            InitializeComponent();<br />
            Log("NiceDialog InitializeComponent end"); <br />
        }<br />
        protected static void Log(string message)<br />
        {<br />
            Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}; {1}",DateTime.Now, message));<br />
        }<br />

SplashForm.cs

<br />
        public SplashForm()<br />
        {<br />
            Log("SplashForm InitializeComponent start");<br />
            InitializeComponent();<br />
            Log("SplashForm InitializeComponent ends");<br />
            this.lblVersion.Text = "version: "+Application.ProductVersion;<br />
        }<br />

Well - it is strange to me. SplashForm constructor is called but its first method is called 3 seconds later. And it's not the time to load next library - they are all declared in main exe file.
There is picture box with some resource based bitmap on the NiceDialog form. I have heard that resources may make program execution slower, so I decided to reset pictureBox Image propery - so it doesn't show anything right now. Here is part of log file with this operations:

2006-09-18 12:25:45; Start of creating splash form
2006-09-18 12:25:45; NiceDialog InitializeComponent start
2006-09-18 12:25:49; NiceDialog InitializeComponent end
2006-09-18 12:25:49; SplashForm InitializeComponent start
2006-09-18 12:25:49; SplashForm InitializeComponent ends

As you can see, NiceDialog execution time become normal, but NiceDialog InitializeComponent gone much higher (4 seconds!!!)- I have no idea why.

Best regards
Hubert

Hi Hubert

Could you dump the contents of InitializeComponent from NiceDialog here - so we could have a look.
We should be able to find the problem Wink | ;-)

Kind regards - Jakob Cool | :cool:

*********************************************
Three kinds of people in the world:
- Those who can count..
- Those who can't!

10 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who understand binary
- Those who don't

Hi Jakob
Here is the code of NiceDialog InitializeComponent:

<code>
        private void InitializeComponent()
        {
            System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(NiceDialogForm));
            this.pictureBox1 = new System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox();
            this.panel1 = new System.Windows.Forms.Panel();
            this.panel2 = new System.Windows.Forms.Panel();
            ((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)(this.pictureBox1)).BeginInit();
            this.SuspendLayout();
            // 
            // pictureBox1
            // 
            this.pictureBox1.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Left;
            this.pictureBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(12, 12);
            this.pictureBox1.Name = "pictureBox1";
            this.pictureBox1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(131, 264);
            this.pictureBox1.SizeMode = System.Windows.Forms.PictureBoxSizeMode.StretchImage;
            this.pictureBox1.TabIndex = 0;
            this.pictureBox1.TabStop = false;
            // 
            // panel1
            // 
            this.panel1.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
            this.panel1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(155, 12);
            this.panel1.Name = "panel1";
            this.panel1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(228, 264);
            this.panel1.TabIndex = 2;
            // 
            // panel2
            // 
            this.panel2.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Left;
            this.panel2.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(143, 12);
            this.panel2.Name = "panel2";
            this.panel2.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(12, 264);
            this.panel2.TabIndex = 3;
            // 
            // NiceDialogForm
            // 
            this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
            this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
            this.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Gainsboro;
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(395, 288);
            this.ControlBox = false;
            this.Controls.Add(this.panel1);
            this.Controls.Add(this.panel2);
            this.Controls.Add(this.pictureBox1);
            this.DoubleBuffered = true;
            this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None;
            this.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon")));
            this.MaximizeBox = false;
            this.MinimizeBox = false;
            this.Name = "NiceDialogForm";
            this.Padding = new System.Windows.Forms.Padding(12);
            this.ShowIcon = false;
            this.ShowInTaskbar = false;
            this.SizeGripStyle = System.Windows.Forms.SizeGripStyle.Hide;
            this.StartPosition = System.Windows.Forms.FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;
            this.Text = "SplashForm";
            ((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)(this.pictureBox1)).EndInit();
            this.ResumeLayout(false);

        }

</code>

There is nothing unusual for me - it's just what VS2k5 has made.
I still think about this release/debug issue - you have mentioned it in the first post. I haven't seen such a big difference, so maybe this is my problem? How can I check if the final assembly is optimized or not? The project seems to be ok - "Optimize code" flag is set.

Best regards
Hubert

Hi Hubert

If I were you, I'd set the Trace.WriteLine statements at the beginning and end inside the InitializeComponent method.
Then move the Trace.WriteLine "end" halfway up, then halfway again, etc. until you find THE line that takes all the time.
I'm pretty sure there is one or two single lines taking up all the time.

Let me know when you're closer to the problem.

Kind regards - Jakob Cool | :cool:

*********************************************
Three kinds of people in the world:
- Those who can count..
- Those who can't!

10 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who understand binary
- Those who don't

Jakob Lund Krarup wrote:
there is one or two single lines taking up all the time.

Yes! I have probably found it. I decided to comment following line from the InitializeComponent method:

this.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon")));

Application needs just 1 second to show SplashForm now, so it is 4 times better than in the early begining of the optimalization. Smile | :)

But I don't have idea how to set icon and image in the picturebox faster than loading from resources. I don't want to have them in separate files in the app directory - I think it is not profesional.

Best regards
Hubert

Hm.... weird!

Is it a homemade icon..? There may be some bug in the icon file.
Try setting the icon to the standard icon and check again for speed comparison.

Kind regards - Jakob Cool | :cool:

*********************************************
Three kinds of people in the world:
- Those who can count..
- Those who can't!

10 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who understand binary
- Those who don't

I've noticed that getting data from a resource can be expensive. IIRC it tries to locate explicit resources for the current language (such as en-us)in a subfolder and takes a file not found exception if it's missing, and then goes on to do a lot of other stuff too. If you run a profiler on the code you'd see some of this going on by looking at the objects that get created behind your back.

Phil Wilson

Sorry for long time no answer, I am still in time-tracing business Smile | :)

Loading icon from external file (plain .ico) takes near no time. Loading it from the dll's resources takes 4 seconds. The same situation is with any other bitmap. I am sure it is my mistake but question is WHAT'S WRONG?

Phil Wilson wrote:
If you run a profiler on the code you'd see some of this going on by looking at the objects that get created behind your back.

Do you mean MS CLR Profiler?
I have downloaded and tried CLR Profiler from Microsoft, however it doesn't work with my project. I run the CLR Profiler, loaded and started my app and bang - the profiler shuts down without any message. Have you noticed such kind of behaviors?

Hubert

Frndz,

I have a image control of type html in DotNet2.0.
I want to create the object of that HTMLImage control in my codebehind.
This is how I try creating the object the HTMLImage object
CType(Me.FindControl("ctl00_cphMaster_imgDate"), HtmlImage).Disabled = True

My control and its runtime generated name is listd below:

Control Script code in aspx page:

Client side script code at runtime:

One of my most memorable & embarrasing moment in Chenoa was Chaitanya's joining party.

Regards,
Vipul Mehta

Hi,

I have a C#.net application. I have two C++ dlls with same name (but different version numbers that i see in the dll). When I use Dll Import to invoke methods on each dll separately in two different applications, all the methods in both the c++ dlls work fine.

But if i tend to use dll import and invoke the functions in the two dlls, the first dll's methods are executing fine but when the second dll's methods are invoked, there is an error stating "cannot load the second dll. method not found".

I wonder if it is something to do with loading two same named dlls in the same memory of an exe...

Please help in identifying the cause and kindly clarify my doubt.

Many Thanks.

Please don't cross post.

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I am dealing with something related to .NET and C# and wonder about your comment. Hope you are clear in understanding my problem.

By cross posting you minimize your chances of getting relevant help, partly because you annoy other people, partly because you don't use the message boards in the best way.

If you feel that you have to draw attention to the question from different message boards, post the question in the most relevant board, and post links to the question in the other boards. That way you get the replies in a single thread, and people can see what other have replied so that they can cooperate in helping you.

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Is there any "approved" method of controlling the order in which delegates are invoked when an event occurs, other adding them to the event in the "right order".

Phil Daniels

You could try delegating the delegate such that the there is exactly one delegate within the event and the other delegates are called by this ?

event calls B (single)
B calls others in the desired order. The other delegates could be internally maintained, perhaps as using a order::delegate value in a Dictionary

[?]

namaste,
Nitin

I've done something similar, which is to create another event that's fired first, the two hi-priority delegates subscribe to it, the rest subscribe to the other event which is fired (ie the On.... method is invoked) after the first is done. It'll do for now.

Thanks for your assist - rgds Wink | ;)

phild

Hi,

Im creating Setfile for my Windows application and i can able to install it after creation, i want to add uninstallation option also with this how can i do it.

Thanks in Advance...

You don't. It is already handled by Windows Installer, look at your Add/Remove programs.

only two letters away from being an asset

I have done my project in .net
When i run my defualt.aspx, sometime it will show runtime error at web config. But sometime it will not.

What will this issue cause by?

the description of my error is:

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Try following in your web.config file and you should be able to see more descriptive error.
customErrors mode="Off"