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<h2><a name="MYSAMPLE">MCA Management Application</a> </h2>
<hr>
<h3>SUMMARY:</h3>
</font><font face="Verdana" size="2">
<p>The "MCA Management Application" is a command-line application, which
queries, retrieves, parses and displays machine check error records on IA64 class
computer systems running a 64-bit (IA64) version of Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Family.
The application provides the same support also for machine check exception
information on X86 and X86-64 platforms running 32-bit (X86) versions of Windows Server 2003 Family
and future releases of Windows correspondingly. The sample application
demonstrates system developers how to make use of the MCA infrastructure on
Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP platforms to identify hardware problems. More sophisticated system
management applications may further enhance the basic functionality of this
sample to also log, analyze and report these hardware problems.</p>
<h3>DETAILED INFORMATION:</h3>
<p>Machine Check Architecture (MCA) mainly attempts to increase the RAS
(reliability, availability and scalability) features of large enterprise-class
computer systems. Therefore, management applications need to make use of the MCA
technology intensively to identify, analyze and solve hardware problems more
efficiently. This sample application demonstrates the current OS MCA support on
32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 Family and 64-bit version of
Windows XP that might be utilized to achieve
these maintenance goals.<br>
<br>
The application primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to query
and retrieve MCA Error Records from the OS. MCA Error
Records on 64-bit (IA64) versions of Windows Server 2003 Family and Windows XP are standard and are
defined in "Intel SAL 3.0 Specification". Thus, system applications may take
advantage of this standardization of hardware error reporting to manage their
IA-64 server systems more efficiently and accurately. See <mce.h> for the MCA Error
Record definitions.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Machine Check Exception information is retrieved from WMI
on X86 and X86-64 systems running 32-bit (X86) versions of
Windows Server 2003 Family and future Windows releases, rather than MCA Error Records as in
IA64 class systems. The Machine Check Exception information is very similar on
X86 and X86-64 and can also be found in <mce.h>.<br>
<br>
Machine check errors can be classified into two main categories:<br>
<br>
- Fatal errors<br>
- Corrected errors<br>
<br>
Fatal errors are hardware failures that cannot be recovered from thus a reboot
is required after the system bugchecks (blue-screen). The machine check error
record that encapsulates the error information is made available to application
through WMI and the System Event-Log upon reboot. Therefore, management
applications must query the OS via WMI after every reboot to check for possible
fatal machine check errors.<br>
<br>
Corrected errors are hardware failures that are corrected by the hardware and/or
firmware (PAL/SAL). These errors are reported to the OS for informational
purposes that might be used to diagnose the failing hardware and prevent future
problems. These errors do not cause the system to bugcheck so management
applications can retrieve these corrected machine check error record real-time
through WMI.<br>
<br>
This sample demonstrates how to query, retrieve, parse and display fatal and
corrected machine check errors.</p>
<h3>SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:</h3>
<p><b>Software:</b><br>
This sample can be build for and run on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 Family
and 64-bit version of Windows XP
as long as the hardware requirements are satisfied as explained below. Windows
2000, Windows XP (32-bit) and all other earlier releases of Windows are not
supported.<br>
<br>
<b>Hardware:<br>
</b>This sample can only be run on the following hardware platforms: </p>
<ul>
<li>All IA64 systems.</li>
<li>All X86-64 systems.</li>
<li>Some X86 systems, specifically Pentium 4 and higher.</li>
</ul>
<h3>BUILDING THE SAMPLE:</h3>
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">The sample can be build
through the DDK build environment. Just select the appropriate build window for
your platform and run <b>build</b> in the "src\kernel\mca\mcamgmt" directory.
When the build operation successfully completes, an executable file called: "mcamgmt.exe"
is created. </span></p>
<h3>CODE TOUR:</h3>
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<td width="160" align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b><font size="2">File</font></b></td>
<td width="575" align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><b><font size="2">
Description</font></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> Common.cpp</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Common functions that are needed by both
fatal and corrected error retrieval. </font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> Common.h</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Header file for Common.cpp</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> CorrectedEngine.cpp</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Corrected error retrieval functions.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> CorrectedEngine.h</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Header file for
CorrectedEngine.cpp</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> FatalEngine.cpp</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Fatal error
retrieval functions.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> FatalEngine.h</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2" face="Verdana"> Header file for
FatalEngine.cpp</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> Mca.cpp</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> User interaction, argument parsing, and
general control function of the application.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> Mca.h</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Header file for Mca.cpp</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> MCAObjectSink.cpp</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Implementation for the MCAObjectSink class
used for WMI notifications.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="160"><font size="2" color="#0000FF"> MCAObjectSink.h</font></td>
<td width="575"><font size="2"> Header file for MCAObjectSink.cpp</font></td>
</tr>
</table>
</font>
<h3 align="left"><font face="Verdana">USAGE:</font></h3>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">The sample can be run according to
the following command-line usage:<br>
<br>
<b><font color="#008000">mcamgmt [ /fatal | {/corrected <TimeOut>} | /? | /usage
] </font></b></font></p>
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<td width="20%"><font color="#008000" face="Verdana" size="2">/fatal</font></td>
<td width="80%"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Queries the system for a fatal
error (machine check abort).</font></td>
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<tr>
<td width="20%"><font color="#008000" face="Verdana" size="2">/corrected
<TimeOut></font></td>
<td width="80%"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Queries the system for a
corrected error (CMC and CPE). The <font color="#008000"><TimeOut></font>
parameter specifies the number of minutes to wait for an error to occur. If
no corrected error is retrieved in <font color="#008000"><TimeOut></font>
minutes, then the application exits. </font></td>
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<tr>
<td width="20%"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><font color="#008000">/?</font>
or <font color="#008000">/usage</font></font></td>
<td width="80%"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Shows the command-line usage
of the tool.</font></td>
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<h3 align="left"><font face="Verdana">WHAT THE SAMPLE DOES NOT DEMONSTRATE:</font></h3>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">
This sample does not demonstrate how to parse the MCA Error Record or MCA
Exception data into a more readable and friendly description, how to log this
data to a file or any other data repository, and how to analyze the data to
predict and prevent future
system failures. However, these sophisticated features might be integrated
easily upon the basic infrastructure provided in this sample.
<span style="background-color: #FFFFFF"><br>
</span></font></p>
<h3 align="left"><font face="Verdana">NOTES:</font></h3>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Keep in mind that in order for
this sample to work, that is, retrieve, parse and display the MCA Error Record
or MCA Exception,
a machine check error should occur on your system. Otherwise, you will not get
any data from the system. In case of corrected error retrieval, the application
will simply exit after <font color="#008000">
<span style="background-color: #FFFFFF"><TimeOut></span></font> minutes if no
corrected machine check error occurs during that timeframe. On the other hand,
in case of fatal error retrieval, the application will simply report that no
error record is present if no fatal machine check error has occurred before the
reboot.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">You may use the latest Hardware
Compatibility Test (HCT) Kit provided by Microsoft to inject fatal and corrected
machine check errors to IA64 systems. The HCT Kit includes a test tool (<i>mcatest.exe</i>)
for verifying the MCA support of the hardware and firmware of IA64 class server
systems. This test tool
injects fatal and machine check errors to the system and verifies the
corresponding data records upon retrieval. You can use this tool to inject these
errors and then use this sample to retrieve and display their data record.</font></p>
<h3 align="left"><font face="Verdana">REFERENCE:</font></h3>
<p align="left"><font face="Verdana" size="2">For more information about the
Machine Check Architecture (MCA) and Windows support for this technology, please
visit the following websites.</font></p>
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<td width="56%" align="center" bgcolor="#C0C0C0"><b>
<font face="Verdana" size="2">Name</font></b></td>
<td width="56%" align="center" bgcolor="#C0C0C0"><b>
<font face="Verdana" size="2">Link</font></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="56%"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana">Intel
System Abstraction Layer (SAL) Specification 3.0 <i>(Specifically, check out
<font color="#008000">Section 4 - Machine Checks</font>)</i></span></td>
<td width="56%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana">
<a href="http://www.intel.com/design/Itanium/Downloads/245359.htm" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single">
http://www.intel.com/design/Itanium/Downloads/245359.htm</a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="56%"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana">MCA
Support in 64-bit Windows</span></td>
<td width="56%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana">
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/64bit/MCAsupport.asp" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single">
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/64bit/MCAsupport.asp</a></span></td>
</tr>
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<td width="56%"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana">MCA
Implementation guide for 64-bit Windows</span></td>
<td width="56%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana">
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/64bit/MCAimpguide.asp" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single">
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/64bit/MCAimpguide.asp</a></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="56%"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana">
Windows Logo program for 64-bit hardware (Latest HCT Server Tests)</span></td>
<td width="56%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Verdana" size="2">
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hwdq/hwtest/devices/systems.asp?area=syssrv-srvr">
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdq/hwtest/devices/systems.asp?area=syssrv-srvr</a></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="56%"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana">Design
guidelines for 64-bit systems</span></td>
<td width="56%">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana">
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/pcdesign/desguide/serverdg.asp#Design3" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; text-underline: single">http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/pcdesign/desguide/serverdg.asp#Design3</a></span></td>
</tr>
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<p><i>Copyright (c) 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.</i></p>
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