You can start Performance Monitor from the Administrative Tools submenu on the Start menu or from the command line, but if you use it often, create a shortcut to it. You can also place it in your Startup folder to start when you boot or create a batch file to start one or many copies of Performance Monitor on different computers in your network.
When you use Performance Monitor, you select object counters and options to customize each of the four Performance Monitor views: Chart, Log, Report and Alert. You can save these counter and option settings to a file and design different settings files for all of your monitoring tasks.
Note
Background startup activities and network traffic can interfere with testing. Unless you are testing how your computer starts Windows NT, wait until the computer settles before testing. Also, disconnect the computer from the network if you are not testing network activity. Network drivers might respond to network events even if they are not directed to your computer.
You can save settings for one view or save a group of view settings in a workspace. This table shows the file extensions associated with each view:
View | Settings File Extension |
Alert | .pma |
Chart | .pmc |
Log | .pml |
Report | .pmr |
Workspace | .pmw |
You can start Performance Monitor with a settings file or open the settings file after you start. If you don't specify a settings file, Performance Monitor looks for default chart file settings in \Winnt40\system32\_Default.pmc. You can use only one settings file of each type at a time, but you can open multiple copies of Performance Monitor and use a different settings file or workspace with each.
You can also edit the settings file using the Setedit utility included on the CD-ROM with this book. For more information on Setedit, see Rktools.hlp.
When you start Performance Monitor from a batch file or from the command line, you can specify a one or more settings file listing the counters and options for each view. For example:
C:\> perfmon settings.pmc cachelog.pml
You can also specify a computer name in addition to, or instead of, a settings file. For example:
C:\> perfmon \\paris1
– Or –
C:\> perfmon settings.pmw \\issaquah
This computer will then appear as the default computer when you click the Add To command or Add counter button.
When you start Performance Monitor from a menu or shortcut, use the Performance Monitor File menu to open a setting file, or just drag the icon for a settings file from My Computer, Windows Explorer, or File Manager (Winfile.exe) onto the Performance Monitor icon or shortcut.
You can also create a shortcut to a settings file, or several shortcuts to settings files for different instances of Performance Monitor.