Let Windows identify performance issues

Every third-rate Windows tipster can tell you how to look up your Windows Experience Index (WEI). Press Windows logo key + E to open Windows Explorer, and then click System Properties on the Command Bar.

In the System dialog box, click the Windows Experience Index link in the center of the dialog box.

Don’t get seduced by the numbers. Those ratings are crude and mostly designed for marketing. Instead, click the Advanced tools link in the Tasks pane on the left side of the dialog box.

And now we’re getting somewhere. Windows Vista monitors performance constantly. If you’ve been experiencing performance problems, they’re going to be called out at the top of this dialog box. In this example, Vista’s diagnostics have identified programs and drivers that are making startup and shutdown take longer than they should.

Click any of the links in this section to open a dialog box with precise, detailed information about the driver or program causing the problem. Armed with that information, you can look for an updated driver or a change in settings that can restore performance to excellent levels.

On this particular system, I discovered that Intel had indeed issued a more recent driver. A quick download, followed by an update (no reboot required), and that performance problem was history.

Get the most out of Task Manager

Task Manager is a quick and dirty tool, useful for getting a quick snapshot of performance and system activity. Although it’s been around for ages, the Vista version has some noteworthy improvements. Here’s how you can put it to best use.

First, learn how to open it up: The old shortcut was Ctrl+Alt+Delete. You can get to Task Manager one click faster if you learn the direct shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+Esc. You’ll also want to click the Show processes from all users button in the bottom left corner to see system-owned processes as well:

(If you prefer to go straight to the elevated version of Task Manager, without any annoying User Account Control dialog boxes, use the shortcut method I describe on page 4 of the previous installment of this series, Fixing Windows Vista, Part 2: Taming UAC. That lets you set up a scheduled task you can run any time, with UAC automatically approved.)

In the screenshot gallery, I explain how to make the following tweaks to Task Manager:

• On the Processes tab, click the CPU heading, which sorts the display of running processes so you can see those that are putting most demand on your processor.
• Customize the display of columns to show the Process Identifier (PID) of each one. That can come in handy when using other tools.
• Sort the Services tab by PID to see which services are grouped under a single instance of Svchost.exe. If that service group is hogging CPU resources, you can narrow down the list of potential offenders here.
• Finally, click the Performance tab to see rough graphs that show CPU and memory usage.

But for anything more than rough snapshots, click the Resource Monitor button at the bottom of the Task Manager Performance tab to open the amazing Resource Monitor program, which I describe on the last page.

First, a definition. In the just-published Windows Vista Inside Out, Deluxe Edition, our discussion of services begins with the following definition:

A service is a specialized program that performs a function to support other programs. Many services operate at a very low level (by interacting directly with hardware, for example) and need to run even when no user is logged on; for this reason, they are often run by the System account (which has elevated privileges) rather than by ordinary user accounts.

Services run outside your user account context, typically during the startup process. From a performance perspective, there are three ways to measure the impact of services. The first is memory usage, the second is CPU usage, and the third is disk (I/O) activity.

Like its predecessors, Windows Vista offers multiple ways to examine which services are running on a system. The easiest tool to use is Task Manager. Press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open Task Manager, and then look on the Processes tab. The default view shows only processes running under your user account; to see processes associated with services, you have to click the Show processes from all users button and answer a UAC prompt.

The information in the second column (User Name) helps you spot the difference between processes running under your user account and services, which run under system-managed accounts with different levels of privilege.

The CPU and Memory columns help to identify how much impact each process is having on these two resources. If you’re looking to save memory by disabling services, you’re likely to be disappointed, On my main desktop, for example, I have 82 services running within 43 processes. Only three of those processes are using more than 20 MB of RAM, and those services that use a single process average less than 7 MB each.

And how about the CPU column? Again, most services work in bursts of activity, when they’re performing their assigned task, and then settle down. If you click the CPU heading, you can sort the list of processes to see if any are consistently using excessive amounts of CPU and not surrendering.

The most interesting entries in the Processes list are those that run under the name Svchost.exe, which is described as Host Process for Windows Services. This is Windows’ way of grouping individual services under a single process to simplify management. To see which services are running under a Svchost instance, right-click its entry in the Processes list and click Go To Service(s). That takes you to the Services tab, with the individual services highlighted in blue, as shown here. (If you click to sort by PID, you can see all these individual services in a single block.)

So, which services should you pay attention to?