The Alert view enables you to continue working while Performance Monitor tracks events and notifies you as requested. Use it to create an alert log that monitors the current performance of selected counters and instances for objects on Windows NT.
With the alert log you can monitor several counters at the same time. When a counter exceeds a given value, the date and time of the event are recorded in the Alert view. One thousand events are recorded, after which the oldest event is discarded when the next new one is added. An event can also generate a network alert. When an event occurs, you can have a specified program run every time or just the first time that it occurs.
Note
You cannot set alerts on two conditions of the same counter for the same instance. For example, you cannot set an alert to be triggered when Processor: %Processor Time on a single processor exceeds 90% and another to be triggered when it falls below 30%.
Also, you cannot set an alert on more than one instance of an object with the same name. For example, if you are running two processes with the same name, you can only set an alert for the first instance of the process. Both instances will appear in the Instances box, but only data collected from the first instance will trigger the alert.
For specific instructions on using the Alert view, opening an existing alert log settings file, and creating a new alert log file, see "Working with Alerts" in Performance Monitor Help.
You can create alert logs to warn yourself about problems in different situations. You can then save these selections under a filename and reuse them when you want to see if the problems have been fixed.
Adding counters in Alert view is similar to adding counters in other views. However, when you set an alert, you specify under what conditions an alert is logged by choosing to have an alert logged if any counter is over or under a value you specify. You can also have Performance Monitor run a program either the first time or every time the alert is logged.
The alert condition applies to the value of the counter over the time interval you specify. The default time interval is 5 seconds. If you set an alert on Memory: Pages/sec > 50 using the default time interval, the average paging rate for a 5-second period has to exceed 50 per second before the alert is triggered.
Note
When you configure Performance Monitor to run a program when an alert occurs, the program might not work properly or error messages might appear. This problem occurs because Performance Monitor passes the Alert condition, as a parameter, to the program. If a program run from Performance Monitor does not work properly, create a one line batch file that runs the program, and call the batch file from Performance Monitor.
When Performance Monitor is logging alerts, a list of your selections appears in the Alert Legend box at the bottom of the window, and Performance Monitor displays the resulting alerts in the Alert Log area.
If an alert occurs while you are not using the Alert view, an alert icon appears in the status bar showing the number of alerts that have occurred since you were last in the Alert view.
When a remote computer that is being monitored shuts down, an alert occurs and creates a comment in the alert log. Another alert occurs (with another corresponding comment) when that computer later reconnects.
For specific instructions on adding selections to an alert log and saving alert log selections in a settings file, see the "Adding Alert Selections" topic in Performance Monitor Help.
For specific instructions on how to change the way a selected counter is represented in the alert log, or to update alert log selections that have been saved in a settings file, see the "Changing Alert Selections" topic in Performance Monitor Help.
Choosing the Alert command on the Options menu enables you to specify not only the alert interval but the alert method, as well. Specify one or all of the following:
Note
To send a network alert message to yourself or to someone else, the Messenger Service must already be started and the net name must already be defined on the recipient's computer.
For specific instructions on how to change alert options, see the "Changing the Alert Options" topic in Performance Monitor Help. For more information on starting the Messenger Service or adding a net name, type net start messenger /? and net name /?.