Monitoring and Performance in Windows 7

  • 10/21/2009
Contents
This chapter from MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-680): Configuring Windows 7 (Corrected Reprint Edition) looks at monitoring resources and performance on a computer running Windows 7. It considers the various tools that tell you what resources are available on a computer and report problems encountered in using a resource. The chapter discusses performance monitoring, establishing baselines and logs, and determining where bottlenecks might occur before they happen. It looks at checking the potential of the computer to perform resource-intensive tasks and how to capture both local events and events on other computers.

Sometimes services, processes, and applications encounter problems and the chapter considers how you can deal with them. Sometimes the tools provided by the operating system are not exactly what you require, and the chapter looks at how you can create standard scripts to address any problems you encounter without requiring a high level of programming expertise.

You need to manage and configure services, configure page files and memory cache, configure services, manage processes, configure your desktop, and, if necessary, change your boot environment. The chapter discusses all these requirements.

Exam objectives in this chapter:

  • Monitor systems.

  • Configure performance settings.

Lessons in this chapter:

  • Lesson 1: Monitoring Systems

  • Lesson 2: Configuring Performance Settings

Before You Begin

To complete the exercises in the practices in this chapter, you need to have done the following:

  • Installed the Windows 7 operating system on a stand-alone client PC, as described in Chapter 1, “Install, Migrate, or Upgrade to Windows 7.” You need Internet access to complete the exercises.

  • Optionally installed Windows 7 on a second PC, as described in Chapter 6, “Network Settings.” A second computer is not required for the practice exercises but will enable you to complete the suggested practices at the end of this chapter.

  • If you have two physical computers that are not otherwise on the same network, you need to connect their Ethernet ports with a crossover cable or by using an Ethernet switch.

  • You need a universal serial bus (USB) flash memory device with at least 200 MB usable free space, or a second internal or external hard disk.

  • The computer you use for the practice exercises (Canberra) needs to have an optical drive that can write to DVD-ROM.

REAL WORLD

Ian McLean

You can usually justify a server upgrade to management, even though many managers don’t know what a server is.

There aren’t many servers. With virtualization, they are fewer than ever before. They are mysterious black boxes that do incomprehensible things. If the network administrator says the servers need an upgrade, the expense probably isn’t huge in the general scheme of things.

Senior managers may not typically be technically aware (when you find one that is, it can be scary) but they are emphatically not fools, especially where money is concerned. You can justify extra cash to upgrade half a dozen servers. When it comes to upgrading 500 workstations, it’s a different ball game.

So gathering performance statistics about your workstations is just as important as gathering them about your servers. You can have the fastest servers on the market, but if your client computers aren’t up to the job, you have a poorly performing network. Even the thinnest of thin clients have bottlenecks, especially when it comes to network resource.

You will need to upgrade your hardware, if not right now, then in a year or two. Start preparing your case. Ensure that you have defined sensible baselines. Keep track of the small but cumulative performance drops as your equipment ages and user expectations increase. Start preparing a good case right now for the upgrades you need in the future. Don’t wait for tomorrow, or else tomorrow somebody else might be doing your job.

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This chapter is from the book