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vmemtracker is a relatively simple application that allows you to track the usage of memory
of an application running on Windows Vista and above.

vmemtracker runs in the background and with very little performance impact. It
logs in a csv formated file the memory usage of an app specified by its path
on disk.

USAGE

The ideal scenario is to have vmemtracker as an auto start application. So it
runs in the background all the time. It takes its parameters from the command
line as follows;

   vmemtracker.exe <dir_for_log> <app_to_track>
   
For example :
   vmemtracker.exe f:\test\vmem "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\bin\link.exe"

Tracks Microsoft Vs2010 linker memory usage, writting log files to the f:\test\vmem folder, for example
it creates this file:
  "Microsoft® Incremental Linker_2013_06_04_0143_fb8dfac5.csv"

Which contains:

  tickcount, peak_working_set, current_working_set, peak_virtual_memory, virtual_memory
  12032420609, 387712, 387368, 151232, 1115264
  12032421671, 429064, 428896, 168668, 1136056
  12032422687, 434612, 20, 0, 0
  exit, rc=0

The first number is the tickcount and it is basically a timestamp relative to the first one on the file (in miliseconds).
The second number is the peak working set in KB the second one is the working set in KB the 3rd one is the
peak virtual memory in KB and the last one is the virtual memory with counts in KB how used is
the address space. You can have low working set but high virtual memory if you have 'reserved' but not commited
memory pages.

The last entry indicates the process being tracked exited with an exit code of zero.

vmemtracker also creates a log file (in the same directory) for itself which can be consulted to find out events
during its run, for example, the file for that run is:
  vmemtracker__2013_06_04_0141_a646d7cb.csv

Which contains:
  
  12032420578, tracking start, 9864, fb8dfac5
  12032422687, tracking end, 9864, 0

The first line means that it found a process to track with process id 9864 and it is tracking its memory with a file
that starts with the name and ends in _fb8dfac5.csv. The second line is that the tracking has ended because the process
exited with exit code 0.

The fb8dfac5 value is the low order 4 bytes of the process creation time. This number plus the process id is considered
as the a 'good enough' unique process identifier. 

This file can also contain 'warnings' when a tracked app uses too much memory. Like 'high workingset' or 'high virtualmem'.
Consult the source for current settings.

CAVEATS

vmemtracker only works on Windows Vista and above. I have only tested it on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

vmemtracker, when no app of interest is running it only wakes up every 4 seconds, so it can miss processes that are
short lived. You can modify that behavior by altering kLongInterval constant. Once an app of interest has been detected
it measures the memory every second and that can be changed by altering kShortInterval constant.

This app has logic to detect is a another instance tracking the same file is running. It will exit inmediately if so.

BUILDING THE CODE

vmemtracker only builds with VS2012, probably you need update 1 or better. The sln and vcprojx are included. You will also
need a resent Windows SDK.

LICENSE

vmemtracker is released under the 2-clause license ("Simplified BSD License" or "FreeBSD License"), see main.cc for
the actual license.

Enjoy.