Microsoft Monday
When Vista came out, certain new features were talked about more than others, like Flip3D or the indexed search capabilities. One feature that wasn’t really mentioned is the Vista Reliability and Performance Monitor. You may not have known that you have it, but you do. It’s built right in to Vista and it gives you an idea of your system’s overall stability. To get a better idea of what it’s about, Microsoft explains that “You can use Microsoft Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor to examine how programs you run affect your computer’s performance, both in real time and by collecting log data for later analysis. Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor uses performance counters, event trace data, and configuration information which can be combined into Data Collector Sets.”
Today we’ll be taking a visual walk through the Vista Reliability and Performance Monitor. For those of you that like graphs, you’ll be in heaven. There are all kinds of them! Before we get started, I should explain that the easiest way to get to this feature is to open the start menu and in the search box, type “reliability and performance monitor.” You can also go to the Control Panel and click on “Performance Information and Tools then click Advanced Tools, and then one of the options will be “Open Reliability and Performance Monitor.” If you have User Account Control (UAC) enabled, you’ll be prompted to provide administrative privileges to open the application.
Resource Overview
Upon opening the Reliability and Performance Monitor, you’ll see the Resource Overview which is pictured below. This shows graphs of your real-time CPU usage, disk usage, network usage, and memory usage.
- CPU – gives you real-time version of the “Processes” section you’d find in the Task Manager (although not as detailed as the one the Task Manager offers)
- Disk – gives you a real-time snapshot of current disk usage
- Network – analyze the bandwidth that’s used for particular applications
- Memory – analyze memory usage based upon the applications that you currently have running
Performance Monitor
In the left side-pane under “Monitoring Tools” you’ll see Performance Monitor. This enables you to examine performance data in graph, histogram, or report form. Additionally, you can add counters by clicking the plus sign. Essentially this means that you’re selecting a specific part of the operating system that you want to monitor like the idle time for your hard drive or processor. You can also create custom Data Collector sets.
Reliability Monitor
The Reliability Monitor is probably the most useful because it provides information about individual events that may have affected the system’s stability (like new software installations). The System Stability Chart gives you all kinds of information and covers five major issues:
- Software Installs/uninstalls
- Application Failures
- Hardware Failures
- Windows Failures
- Miscellaneous Failures
All of the little symbols like the red X’s mean something and you can click on each of them to get details. For example, I clicked on the red X shown below and it showed me that Firefox (an application failure) stopped working on November 30th. In the “Miscellaneous Failures” line you’ll see a bunch of X’s and when I click on them, it says “disruptive shutdown.” This meant that my computer was not shut down properly (due in part to my computer having issues coming out of stand-by after disconnecting from a dual-monitor setup).
You’ll also notice an index number to the right which will be between 1 and 10. One is the lowest while ten is the highest and the higher the number, the better. This number is the overall score — or the system stability index which measures how reliable your system is. The more failures you have, the lower your score will be.
Hopefully this article gave you a better idea of what Vista’ Reliability and Performance Monitor is all about. It’s definitely interesting to look through all of the graphs and see just how reliable your computer is. Did any of you find yourself surprised at how high or low your system index was?
Whoa, it that your reliability moniter? Mines stays at 8.xx and goes up, something happens goes back down to 8.xx again.
Wait, just realized you were using Firefox 3b.
Opera 9.5b dosen’t seem to crash that much…O.O
Anyways, thanks for the info. I’ll be using this more..
Yep, that’s my reliability monitor. The biggest issue I have is that my computer has issues coming out of stand-by after disconnecting from a dual-monitor setup. I work with a dual-monitor set-up all day and then disconnect at night and just use my laptop. For some reason or another, Vista has serious issues with this which then causes a “disruptive shutdown.” If I weren’t connecting and disconnecting a second monitor everyday, I’m sure my reliability score would be much higher.
IMHO, I don’t think it’s much of an improvement over XP’s System Monitor, except for the nicer icons and graphs. And most of it is also reported in more detail in the Event Log, so its not of much use for those users who regularly check the Event Log to keep their system healthy. Nevertheless, its a fun utility for stats.
On my reliabilty monitor,score is 10 since 07/10/27. With Vista Pr. since 07/05/10(almost 6 m. to understand what Vista doesn’t like).
I mainly use (in order of use I think) Opera 950 post beta, MS VStudio 2005e.ed.-VisualC# and VB, Komposer, PaintNet322, starOffice8 upd.8, plus a lot more too long to quote them all, like everybody.
Aero+3Dflip is enabled and in main visible bg stands N.I.S 2007. Xplorer2 as explorer does the job.Before this date, I got frequent “error 1000″, aka “x.exe doesn’t respond anymore”. But an error 1000 costs, taking days to reach again the score you were in the rel.mon! But once you’ve set all things ok, score increases, and only big errors can have it down. I roughly test all new things on my former Vista desktop PC (test machine) before installing on my Vista laptop.
Another handy tool for those who want to know a bit more their computer reliabilty is “creating a performance report” through “advanced tools” in “informations and performances tool”. You may just watch the report and not keep it. Handy. Keeping always an eye on Console Event logs is recommended on Vista. A whole set of control tools making Vista a bit more “visible” than XP.imho.
@Ashley
What about Intel driver.Mobile Intel 945GM/GU Express Chipset Family?
It seems to have a wide range of graphic chipset compatibility, and it does work well for me on a HP Compaq Presario V6149 laptop. Yet seen it on other laptops using 2 screens, like you, like me. I disconnect the 2nd too at night through a well done UI.
Hope this can serve you!
Thanks for the advice, I’ll have to try it and see what happens…
@ Ashley : May the following infos help you, I hope.
Intel Corporation driver update for Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family, released 2007/12/19
Here are more infos and download :
[winqual.microsoft.com]
Greetings
You can also bring this up by typing:
Perfmon.msc into the Run box