Managing System Performance 567 In Exercise 13.3, you will monitor your computer’s processor. This exercise assumes that you have completed the other exercises in this chapter. Monitoring and Optimizing the Disk Subsystem Disk access is the amount of time your disk subsystem takes to retrieve data that is requested by the operating system. The two factors that determine how quickly your disk subsystem will respond to system requests are the average disk access time on your hard drive and the speed of your disk controller. Key Counters to Track for the Disk Subsystem You can monitor the PhysicalDisk object, which is the sum of all logical drives on a single physical drive, or you can monitor the LogicalDisk object, which represents a specific logical disk. Following are the most important counters for monitoring the disk subsystem. These counters can be tracked for both the PhysicalDisk object and the LogicalDisk object. EXERCISE 13.3 Monitoring the System Processor 1. If System Monitor is not already open, select Start All Programs Administrative Tools Monitor. 2. In the System Monitor window, click the Add button on the toolbar. 3. In the Add Counters dialog box, specify the following performance objects and counters: Select Processor from the performance object drop-down list, select %Processor Time in the counter list box, and click the Add button. Select Processor from the performance object drop-down list, select Interrupts/Sec in the counter list box, and click the Add button. 4. Click the Close button. You should see these counters added to your chart. 5. To generate some activity, select Start Control Panel Appearance and Themes Display. Click the Screen Saver tab. Select 3D FlowerBox and click the Preview button. Let this process run for about 5 seconds, and close all of the dialog boxes you opened in this step. You should see that the %Processor Time counter spiked during this process. 6. Note the Processor > %Processor Time counter. If this counter’s average is below 85%, you do not have a processor bottleneck. 7. Note the Processor > Interrupts/Sec counter. If this counter is below 1,000 on a Pentium computer, you do not have any processes or hardware that are generating excessive interrupts. Leave System Monitor open, for use again in Exercise 13.4. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com 568 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP PhysicalDisk > %Disk Time Shows the amount of time the physical disk is busy because it is servicing read or write requests. If the disk is busy more than 90% of the time, you will improve performance by adding another disk channel and splitting the disk I/O requests between the channels. PhysicalDisk > %Current Disk Queue Length Indicates the number of outstanding disk requests that are waiting to be processed. This value should be less than 2. Tuning and Upgrading the Disk Subsystem When you suspect that you have a disk subsystem bottleneck, the first thing you should check is your memory subsystem. Insufficient physical memory can cause excessive paging, which in turn affects the disk subsystem. If you do not have a memory problem, you can try the following solutions to improve disk performance: Use faster disks and controllers. Confirm that you have the latest drivers for your disk host adapters. Use Disk Manager to use disk striping to take advantage of multiple I/O channels. Balance heavily used files on multiple I/O channels. Add another disk controller for load balancing. Use Disk Defragmenter to consolidate files so that disk space and data access are optimized. If you are on a network, distribute applications that have high disk I/O through the Distributed File System (DFS) to balance workload. In Windows NT 4, you enabled all disk counters through the DISKPERF –Y command. Physical and logical disk counters are automatically enabled in Windows XP Professional. In Exercise 13.4, you will monitor your disk subsystem. This exercise assumes that you have completed the other exercises in this chapter. EXERCISE 13.4 Monitoring the Disk Subsystem 1. If System Monitor is not already open, select Start All Programs Administrative Tools Monitor. 2. In the System Monitor window, click the Add button on the toolbar. 3. In the Add Counters dialog box, specify the following performance objects and counters: Select PhysicalDisk from the performance object drop-down list, select %Disk Time from the counter list box, and click the Add button. Select PhysicalDisk from the performance object drop-down list, select Current Disk Queue Length from the counter list box, and click the Add button. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Managing System Performance 569 You can monitor the amount of free disk space on your logical disk through the LogicalDisk > %Free Space counter. This counter can also be used as an alert. For example, you might set an alert to notify you when LogicalDisk > %Free Space on drive C: is under 10%. Monitoring and Optimizing the Network Subsystem Windows XP Professional does not have a built-in mechanism for monitoring the entire network. However, you can monitor and optimize the traffic that is generated on the specific Windows XP computer. You can monitor the network interface (your network card), and you can monitor the network protocols that have been installed on your computer. Network bottlenecks are indicated when network traffic exceeds the capacity that can be supported by the Local Area Network (LAN). Typically, you would monitor this activity on a network-wide basis—for example, with the Network Monitor utility that is shipped with Windows Server 2003. Key Counters to Track for the Network Subsystem If you are using the System Monitor utility to monitor local network traffic, the following two counters are useful for monitoring the network subsystem: Network Interface > Bytes Total/Sec Measures the total number of bytes sent or received from the network interface and includes all network protocols. TCP > Segments/Sec Measures the number of bytes sent or received from the network interface and includes only the TCP protocol. Select LogicalDisk from the performance object drop-down list, select %Idle Time from the counter list box, and click the Add button. 4. Click the Close button. You should see these counters added to your chart. 5. To generate some activity, open and close some applications and copy some files between the C: drive and D: drive. 6. Note the PhysicalDisk > %Disk Time counter. If this counter’s average is below 90%, you are not generating excessive requests to this disk. 7. Note the PhysicalDisk > %Current Disk Queue Length counter. If this counter’s average is below 2, you are not generating excessive requests to this disk. Leave System Monitor open; you will use this utility again in Exercise 13.5. EXERCISE 13.4 (continued) Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com 570 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP Normally, you monitor and optimize the network subsystem from a network perspective rather than from a single computer. For example, you can use a network protocol analyzer to monitor all traffic on the network to determine whether the network bandwidth is acceptable for your requirements and that network bandwidth is saturated. Tuning and Upgrading the Network Subsystem The following suggestions can help to optimize and minimize network traffic: Use only the network protocols you need. For example, use TCP/IP and don’t use NWLink. If you need to use multiple network protocols, place the most commonly used protocols higher in the binding order. Use network cards that take full advantage of your bus width—for example, 32-bit cards instead of 16-bit cards. Use faster network cards—for example, 100Mbps Ethernet instead of 10Mbps Ethernet. In Exercise 13.5, you will monitor your network subsystem. This exercise assumes that you have completed the other exercises in this chapter. EXERCISE 13.5 Monitoring the Network Subsystem 1. If System Monitor is not already open, select Start All Programs Administrative Tools Monitor. 2. In the System Monitor window, click the Add button on the toolbar. 3. In the Add Counters dialog box, specify the following performance objects and counters: Select Network Interface from the performance object drop-down list, select Bytes Total/Sec in the counter list box, and click the Add button. Select TCP from the performance object drop-down list, select Segments/Sec from the counter list box, and click the Add button. 4. Click the Close button. You should see these counters added to your chart. 5. To generate some activity, copy some files between your C: drive and D: drive. 6. Note the two counters Network Interface > Bytes Total/Sec and TCP > Segments/Sec. These numbers are cumulative. Use them in your baselines to determine network activity. Leave your Monitor console open, for use again in Exercise 13.6. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Managing System Performance 571 Creating Baseline Reports As explained earlier in this chapter, baselines show how your server is performing at a certain time. By taking baselines at regular intervals and also whenever you make changes to the system’s configuration, you can monitor your server’s performance over time. You can create baselines by setting up a counter log file in the Performance Logs and Alerts utility. After you’ve created the baseline log file, you can view it in System Monitor, as shown in Figure 13.17. FIGURE 13.17 Viewing a performance baseline in System Monitor In Exercise 13.6, you will create a baseline report for your computer. EXERCISE 13.6 Creating a Baseline Report 1. If the Monitor console is not already open, select Start All Programs Administrative Tools Monitor. 2. Double-click Performance Logs and Alerts. 3. Right-click Counter Logs and select New Log Settings. 4. In the New Log Settings dialog box, type Countermmddyy (replace mmddyy with the current month, date, and year) as the log name. The log file will be stored in the C:\PerfLogs folder by default. Click the OK button. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com 572 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP Using the System Tool in Control Panel The System Tool in Control Panel can be used to manage performance options for your com- puter. The performance-related options that can be configured through the System Tool include how visual settings affect performance, processor scheduling, memory usage, and how the paging file is configured. To access these options, select Start Control Panel Performance and Maintenance System. Select the Advanced tab, and then for Performance, click the Settings button. You will see two tabs, Visual Effects and Advanced. 5. In the General tab of the counter log Properties dialog box, click the Add Counters button and add the following counters: Memory > Available MBytes Memory > Pages/Sec Paging File > %Usage Processor > %Processor Time Processor > Interrupts/Sec PhysicalDisk > %Disk Time PhysicalDisk > Current Disk Queue Length Network Interface > Bytes Total/Sec TCP > Segments/Sec 6. Click the Close button, and set the interval for sampling data to 5 seconds. 7. Click the Log Files tab. Uncheck the End File Names With check box. This will prevent the appending of mmddhh (month/day/hour) to the filename. Click the OK button to close the Properties dialog box and start the log file. 8. Generate some system activity: Start and stop some applications, copy a few files, and run a screensaver for 1 or 2 minutes. 9. To view your log file, open System Monitor. Click the View Log Data button on the toolbar. In the System Monitor dialog box that appears, select the Log Files radio button and click the Add button. 10. In the Select File dialog box, select C:\PerfLogs\Countermmddyy and click the Open button. 11. Add the counters from the log file you created to see the data that was collected in your log. EXERCISE 13.6 (continued) Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Using the System Tool in Control Panel 573 From the Visual Effects tab (see Figure 13.18), you can specify how performance is tuned based on the visual effects you choose to use with your user interface. The selections for visual effect settings include: Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer Adjust for best appearance Adjust for best performance Custom FIGURE 13.18 The Visual Effects tab of the Performance Options dialog box If you click the Advanced tab, you will see the dialog box shown in Figure 13.19. From the Advanced tab, you can configure: Processor scheduling, which allows you to optimize the processor time for running programs or background services Memory usage, which allows you to optimize memory for programs or system cache Virtual memory, which is used to configure the paging file If you click on the Change button within the Virtual Memory section of the Advanced tab, you can manage the page file, as shown in Figure 13.20. When Windows is initially installed, the page file, pagefile.sys, is set to 1.5 times the amount of physical memory. You can optimize the page file by moving it from the drive that contains the system partition or by splitting the it over multiple disk I/O channels. In order to make changes to the System Tool, you must be logged onto the local computer with administrative rights. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com 574 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP FIGURE 13.19 The Advanced Tab of the System Tool FIGURE 13.20 Virtual Memory dialog box Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Using Task Manager 575 Using Task Manager The Task Manager utility shows the applications and processes that are currently running on your computer, as well as CPU and memory usage information. To access Task Manager, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click the Task Manager button. Alternatively, right-click an empty area in the Taskbar and select Task Manager from the pop-up menu. The Task Manager dialog box has four main tabs, Applications, Processes, Performance, and Networking. These options are covered in the following subsections. Managing Application Tasks The Applications tab of the Task Manager dialog box, shown in Figure 13.21, lists all of the applications that are currently running on the computer. For each task, you will see the name of the task and the current status (running, not responding, or stopped). FIGURE 13.21 The Applications tab of the Task Manager dialog box To close an application, select it and click the End Task button at the bottom of the dialog box. To make the application window active, select it and click the Switch To button. If you want to start an application that isn’t running, click the New Task button and specify the location and name of the program you wish to start. Managing Process Tasks The Processes tab of the Task Manager dialog box, shown in Figure 13.22, lists all the processes that are currently running on the computer. This is a convenient way to get a quick look at Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com 576 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP how your system is performing. Unlike System Monitor, Task Manager doesn’t require that you first configure the collection of this data; it’s gathered automatically. FIGURE 13.22 The Processes tab of the Task Manager dialog box For each process, you will see the image name (the name of the process), the user name (the user account that is running the process), CPU (the amount of CPU utilization for the process), and Mem Usage (the amount of memory that is being used by the process). From the Processes tab, you can organize the listing and control processes as follows: To organize the processes based on usage, click the column headings. For example, if you click the CPU column, the listing will start with the processes that use the most CPU resources. If you click the CPU column a second time, the listing will be reversed. To manage a process, right-click it and choose an option from the pop-up menu. You can choose to end the process, end the process tree, or set the priority of the process (to realtime, high, abovenormal, normal, belownormal, or low). If your computer has multiple processors installed, you can also set processor affinity (the process of associating a specific process with a specific processor) for a process. See Chapter 4, “Configuring the Windows XP Environment,” for details on setting processor affinity. To customize the counters that are listed, select View Select Columns. This brings up the Select Columns dialog box, shown in Figure 13.23, where you can select the information that you want to see listed on the Processes tab. Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com [...]... Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Chapter 13 578 TABLE 13.2 Optimizing Windows XP Common Processes (continued) Process Description explorer.exe Windows Explorer interface Ntvdm.exe MS-DOS and Windows 16-bit application support Managing Process Priority You can... also look at two new options in Windows XP: Remote Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Safeguarding Your Computer and Recovering from Disaster 597 Desktop and Remote Assistance Remote Desktop is used to access a Windows XP Professional computer remotely Remote... in the Event Viewer utility If you can’t start Windows XP Professional, there are several options and utilities that can be used to identify and resolve Windows errors The following is a broad list of troubleshooting options: If you have recently made a change to your computer’s configuration by installing a new device driver or application and Windows XP Professional will not load properly, you can... Table 14.1 summarizes all of the Windows XP utilities and options that can be used to assist in performing system recovery Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com 598 Chapter 14 TABLE 14.1 Performing System Recovery Functions Windows XP Professional Recovery Techniques... maximized window /separate Starts a Windows 16-bit application in a separate memory space By default Windows 16-bit applications run in a shared memory space, NTVDM, or NT Virtual DOS Machine /shared Starts a DOS or Windows 16-bit application in a shared memory space Running a process-intensive application in the Realtime priority class can significantly impact Windows XP Professional performance Copyright... Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com Chapter 13 586 Optimizing Windows XP If no user is logged into the computer when the task is scheduled to be run, the task will still run, but it will not be visible Summary In this chapter, you learned about managing Windows XP Professional optimization and... Network D Application Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo PDF Merge and Split Unregistered Version - http://www.simpopdf.com 588 4 Chapter 13 Optimizing Windows XP You are the network administrator for a network that consists of Windows XP Professional computers configured as a workgroup One of your users, Curtis, recently installed... utilities works The Recovery Console starts Windows XP without the graphical interface and allows the administrator limited capabilities, such as adding or replacing files and enabling/disabling services All these Windows XP Professional recovery techniques are covered in detail in this chapter Copyright ©2003 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94 501 COPYING PROHIBITED www.sybex.com Simpo... http://www.simpopdf.com Using Event Viewer 599 Using Event Viewer You can use the Event Viewer utility to track information about your computer’s hardware and software, as well as to monitor security events All of the traced information is stored in three types of log files: System log Tracks events related to the Windows XP operating system Security log Tracks events related to Windows XP auditing Application log... Assistance is used to request assistance from another Windows XP user Safeguarding Your Computer and Recovering from Disaster One of the worst events you will experience is a computer that won’t boot An even worse experience is discovering that there is no recent backup for that computer The first step in preparing for disaster recovery is to expect that a disaster will happen at some point, and take . Realtime priority class can significantly impact Windows XP Professional performance. explorer.exe Windows Explorer interface Ntvdm.exe MS-DOS and Windows 16-bit application support TABLE 13.3 Options. Subsystem Windows XP Professional does not have a built-in mechanism for monitoring the entire network. However, you can monitor and optimize the traffic that is generated on the specific Windows XP. utility Exam Essentials Be able to monitor and troubleshoot Windows XP Professional performance. Know which utilities can be used to track Windows XP performance events and issues. Know how to track