Path Technology

Your computer has seemed to slow down, so what do you do next? Add memory? Replace the hard disk? Before you make changes to your system, the Performance Tool can help you to see inside.

The Performance Tool in Microsoft Windows has "counters" which can measure specific computer activities that you can analyze. Before you make a major change to you system, do some meaningful analysis:

1. Start the Performance Tool.
2. Set the Tool to monitor specific issues.
3. Run the Tool to take the specific measurements.
4. Go back to working normally.
5. After some period of time, review the Performance tool data.

After making a hardware change, run the same tests again to measure the improvement!

To invoke the Performance Tool:

• Choose Start -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management, then select "Performance Logs and Alerts", or
• Choose Start -> Run -> Open: perfmon.msc -> 'OK'.