Sections

 Introduction
 Watching
 Bad counters


Related articles

 The Manager
 Statistics


Quick links

 Table of Contents
 Questions

Performance window (NT/2K/XP only)
 

Introduction

Windows NT, 2000 and XP (and presumably all later versions of Windows) keep detailed statistics on your computer's performance. MemoryBoost, through the Performance window, gives you access to all these statistics. You can browse through them by expanding the different sections (Memory, LogicalDisk, etc.) to see the various metrics that are kept.

By default, MemoryBoost does not watch particular statistics (this requires memory and CPU time). You must tell MemoryBoost to watch a particular statistic. Information on how this is done appears below.

Some versions of Windows NT don't come with performance monitoring installed. You can, however, download the appropriate files from Microsoft's website. If you're using Windows NT and MemoryBoost's Performance page does not appear, you should be able to get it to reappear by installing these files. For more information, please visit the Installing PDH section.

Watching a statistic

To conserve your processor's time, MemoryBoost does not watch particular statistics by default. You can turn on watching for any statistic by right-clicking it, and choosing "Watch" from the menu that appears.

In some cases, you'll need to tell MemoryBoost how you'd like the statistic to be kept. Some statistics, such as free disk space, apply to more than one element in your computer (if you have more than one hard-drive, for example, this statistic can be kept on any of your hard-drives, or all of them together). If a statistic is ambiguous, MemoryBoost will display a window listing the options you may choose. Just double-click the one you want to start the watching.

You can watch as many statistics as you want. Repeat the above procedure to watch other statistics. When the Manager closes, statistics watching is turned off automatically.

Bad counter names

Sometimes, when you try to watch a statistic, you'll see "bad counter name" appear in the "Comments" column, and some dashes appear in the "Value" column. This particular statistic is apparently not available to MemoryBoost, and cannot be displayed in the Performance page.

Installing PDH

The Performance Data Helper (PDH) system provides the capability MemoryBoost's Performance page utilizes in displaying its information. Without PDH, this information is unavailable to MemoryBoost. Windows 2000 and XP come with PDH installed; Windows NT, however, does not always have PDH installed. If you're using Windows NT and want to use the Performance page, you can visit http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=33095 to get a copy of Microsoft's PDH system for Windows NT. Once you install PDH, you should be able to open MemoryBoost's Performance page.

(The link provided was valid at the time of publishing and may not be valid at the present time).