Windows performance counters allow your applications and components to capture and analyze the performance data that applications, services, and drivers provide. You can use this information to determine system bottlenecks and fine-tune system and application performance. For example, you might use a performance counter to track the amount of time required to process an order or query a database, or you might monitor the size of a message queue and write code that performs a specific action whenever the queue reaches a preset limit.
Using the PerformanceCounter component, you can easily connect to performance counters on both local and remote computers and retrieve values from these counters. You can also write values to existing counters on the local computer and create your own custom counters on computers that have Windows 2000 installed.
For information on | See |
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Performance counter features | Introduction to Monitoring Performance Thresholds |
The language elements used in PerformanceCounter component programming | PerformanceCounter Programming Architecture |
The types of performance counters that you might work with | Performance Counter Types |
Creating instances of and configuring PerformanceCounter components | Creating PerformanceCounter Components |
Creating, deleting, and querying performance counters and the categories that classify them | Category and Counter Management |
Incrementing or decrementing a performance counter’s value | Writing Values to Performance Counters |
Reading values from and writing values to a counter | Performance Counter Value Retrieval |
Managing performance counter state with a service | Setting up the Performance Counter Service |