Today we'll take a look at Performance Monitor, also known as PerfMon.exe or PerfMon.msc: a comprehensive tool designed to monitor your computer's performance. Using it you can find out how your computer manages its resources. Also, System Monitor can help you figure out which program works best in tune with your computer. For example, if you enjoy listening to music while running resource-intensive programs or playing video games, System Monitor will let you know which music player is least affecting your system's performance. In other words, the information it provides can help you make a decision about choosing different software and hardware if the performance of your computer does not meet your requirements.
How to access the system monitor in Windows 7
The easiest way to open Performance Monitor on a Windows 7 computer is to click on the Start button and type “Performance Monitor” in the search box.
A shortcut to the program will appear at the top of the search results.
I've noticed that some websites confuse Performance Monitor with other Windows tools, so just make sure you run what we want. The "System Monitor" looks like the screenshot below:
You can also open this tool by going to "Control Panel" -> "System and Security" ->
How to access the System Monitor in Windows 8
In Windows 8, the tool can be opened just as easily. However, if you try to find it by searching on the home screen and typing in its name, you will fail. To search for this program, you need to enter perfmon.exe or perfmon.msc.
As with Windows 7, Windows 8 Performance Monitor can be found in the following path: "Control Panel" -> "System and Security" -> "Administrative Tools" - "System Monitor".
System performance analysis
To start analyzing the current performance of your computer, click on "System Monitor" in the "Monitoring Tools" section on the main program panel.
If you want to see the performance of your computer when using a certain set of programs, launch them and watch the graph changes. By default, this graph measures the time it takes the processor to process the program (processor time is displayed as a percentage). This is the main indicator of CPU utilization.
Additional columns and several other options can be included in this graph. For more in-depth analysis, you can add counters to the graph that track other aspects of your processor's activity.
So, click on the green plus button.
Select the counters, click "Add" and then click the "OK" button.
The graph below uses a set of "Processor" counters. It shows useful data such as interrupts and user-mode percentage.
This data can also be viewed in other formats. To do this, click on the "Change Chart Type" button and select a bar chart or report.
The screenshot below shows the data in histogram format:
And in this screenshot we have an example of displaying data in a report format:
The data included in Performance Monitor reports is highly technical and difficult to understand. If you're looking for a good knowledge base that explains all of the terms, read up on TechNet. There you will find information (in English) about each meter in the standard list of reports.
Have a great day!