I am a huge fan of Performance Monitor (PerfMon). Yes, I know, that\u2019s a geeky statement, but I don\u2019t care. There is such a wealth of information available from PerfMon; you can use it to look at performance real-time, or to capture metrics about performance over time.\u00a0 And, the functionality is built in to Windows. It\u2019s there no matter what Windows server you\u2019re working on \u2013 and when you work on a lot of different servers having a tool you can consistently rely on is extremely useful.<\/p>\n
But one challenge I had with PerfMon that took me a while to figure out was how to change the default settings. When I start PerfMon, it only shows the % Processor Time counter. Now that\u2019s a useful counter, especially when there\u2019s a performance issue going on, but I also want to look at other counters such as memory utilization and disk latency. When the system is having a problem, I dislike spending an extra minute or two to add all the counters I want to see. I want them to just be there when I open PerfMon.<\/p>\n
For those of you running Windows 2008 and higher (and Windows Vista and higher for workstations), there is an easy solution.\u00a0 If you\u2019re on Windows XP or Windows 2003, I have a solution for you, too, it\u2019s just a few extra steps.<\/p>\n
Windows 2008+ and Windows Vista+<\/span><\/p>\n On your local or machine or server, select Start<\/b> | Run<\/b> and then open up Performance Monitor with the \/sys Command-Line option: perfmon \/sys<\/b><\/p>\n This opens Performance Monitor in a stand-alone mode (if you enter just perfmon, you get additional options such as Data Collector Sets and Reports).\u00a0 Within PerfMon, add the counters you want to monitor.\u00a0 You can either click on the green plus (+) to add counters, or right-click in the graph and select Add Counters\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0 Once you have added the counters, close PerfMon.\u00a0 Trust me.\u00a0 Just close it.<\/p>\n Go back to Start<\/strong> | Run<\/strong> and enter perfmon \/sys<\/strong> again.\u00a0 The counters you added should be selected.\u00a0 Running Process Monitor on my machine showed that PerfMon saved a configuration file (Perfmon.PerfmonCfg) in Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local.\u00a0 The location may<\/em> vary depending on OS or roaming profiles (if you cannot find it, simply run Process Monitor and filter on perfmon.exe to find where it writes the file).<\/p>\n You can take this one step further by creating multiple .PerfmonCfg files \u2013 and they can be stored anywhere.\u00a0 Once you have selected the counters in PerfMon, select File<\/strong> | Save Settings As\u2026<\/strong> and create a new .PerfmonCfg file with the appropriate name, either locally or in a share.\u00a0 Modify the counters as needed, then save the configuration as a different .PerfmonCfg file.\u00a0 When you want to launch PerfMon for a specific .PerfmonCfg file, just double-click on the file.\u00a0 A great benefit of the different files is that you can share them between servers.\u00a0 However, take note of how you add the counters.\u00a0 If you add a counter for a specific drive letter that doesn\u2019t exist on every server, the counter will appear in the list, but no data will appear in the graph.<\/p>\n Windows 2003 and Windows XP<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re still running Windows XP or Windows 2003, don\u2019t despair, I have another method.<\/p>\n On your local or machine or server, open up Performance Monitor (Start<\/b> | Run<\/b>| perfmon<\/b>). Add the counters you want to monitor.\u00a0 Once you have the counters added, right-click again in the graphing area and select Save As\u2026<\/strong> and save it as a .html file. Then close PerfMon.<\/p>\n Start up PerfMon again, you should see that you only have the % Processor Time counter. Open the .html file you just saved in a text editor. Highlight everything (CTRL + A<\/strong>) and then copy it (CTRL + C<\/strong>). Switch back to PerfMon, click in the graph area and paste (CTRL + V<\/strong>). You can also click on the paste icon in the toolbar. The counters will immediately show up.\u00a0 As with the configuration file, you can create multiple .html files to save locally or share.<\/p>\n Many routes to the same goal<\/span><\/p>\n Having the ability to open PerfMon with specific counters already selected is one of those little things that just makes my life easier.\u00a0 Because there are usually many different ways to accomplish the same task in Windows (think of how you open Windows Explorer \u2013 do you right-click on the Start button and select Open Windows Explorer<\/strong>, or do you use CTRL + E<\/strong>, or something else?), I\u2019m interested to know if there are other methods people have used to get counters to show up by default.\u00a0 Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if you know of other options.\u00a0 I hope this helps!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am a huge fan of Performance Monitor (PerfMon). Yes, I know, that\u2019s a geeky statement, but I don\u2019t care. There is such a wealth of information available from PerfMon; you can use it to look at performance real-time, or to capture metrics about performance over time.\u00a0 And, the functionality is built in to Windows. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n