Windows XP forum: ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess

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I agree with a former post which writes...

by R. Proffitt - 3/9/08 12:51 PM

In Reply to: ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess by Farmer Karl

"Just a note on the ntbtlog... that should show the drivers that did *install*, but it also shows the a list of Windows drivers that did *not* install. Windows has a large driver database so it can accommodate a large variety of hardware. You shouldn't be concerned with this unless you are missing drivers for hardware you have installed."

If you look at a few more machines you find more "did not load" entries.

So I'm calling this avenue a dead end. Look elsewhere.
Bob

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Try Bootlog XP

by postalet - 10/24/08 9:01 AM

In Reply to: ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess by Farmer Karl

You might try "Bootlog XP", available at download.com. It is fully functional for 30 days, and shows the load time of all applications at startup. Nice graphical display.

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ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess

by markfilipak - 8/4/12 11:22 PM

In Reply to: ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess by Farmer Karl

I have the same question.
My NTBTLOG.TXT is 1.5 mega-bytes!
It has 17,326 lines.
Of those 17,326 lines, 16,512 lines begin "Did not load driver", and 814 lines begin "Loaded driver".
Of those 814 lines that begin "Loaded driver", 682 are duplicates.
A total of only 132 drivers and services were loaded.

Drivers and services fit into groups. Those groups must be loaded in a particular order. Within a group, the drivers may also have a load order. When a driver is found in the Windows registry (example: [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip]), a value=data pair (example: "DependOnService"="IpSec") can specify that the load must wait until a more fundamental service is in place (example: Tcpip waits until IpSec has been loaded).

Well, it would be reasonable for the loader to traverse the registry and build a table of drivers & services to be loaded, then as it finds each driver's & service's file specification, it scoreboards it and assigns a sort prefix. Then it sorts the table and does the loading.

Windows apparently doesn't do that. It apparently traverses the driver & service list in looping fashon and doesn't make a scoreboard. It apparently proceeds by trial and error, tossing a driver or service over its shoulder if its dependency driver or service hasn't already been loaded. When the list is exhausted, it turns around to the discard pile it threw over its shoulder and repeats. It continues to do that until, when it turns around, there's no pile left. (Actually, what I've just described is more efficient than what Windows is apparently doing because as I go down the "Did not load driver" list I see new entries being added that weren't in the list before. So it appears that Windows isn't even waiting to get a list created.)

At least, this is how it looks to me, but your mileage may vary.

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ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess

by markfilipak - 8/5/12 12:02 AM

In Reply to: ntbtlog.txt interpretation -- multi Did Not Load Driver mess by markfilipak

Disregard some of what I wrote above. I didn't realize I was looking at many differing logs concatenated together. The only thing that separates them is a heading like this: " Service Pack 3 8 4 2012 18:35:39.375".
Farmer Karl must have been looking at multiple logs without knowing it.

Taking just one log, I have 148 lines (not counting the heading). 10 of them did not load drivers, 138 did.

What I wrote about load order is correct, though.

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