Windows 7 / Networking

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Performance Monitor

You can use Performance Monitor to view thousands of real-time counters containing information about your computer or a remote computer. When troubleshooting network performance problems, you can use Performance Monitor to view current bandwidth utilization in a more detailed way than provided by Task Manager or Resource Monitor. Additionally, Performance Monitor provides access to counters measuring retries, errors, and much more.

Performance Monitor provides access to the following categories, which contain counters that might be useful for troubleshooting network problems:

• .NET CLR Networking Examines network statistics for specific Microsoft .NET Framework applications. Use these counters if you are experiencing applicationspecific networking problems and the application is based on the .NET Framework.
• BITS Net Utilization Provides statistics related to Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), which is used to transfer files in the background. Windows Update, among other applications, uses BITS to transfer files. Use these counters if you think a network performance problem might be related to BITS transfers or if BITS transfers do not perform as expected.
• Browser Provides statistics related to the Computer Browser service, which is used to browse network resources. Use these counters only if you are troubleshooting problems with browsing local networks, specifically for resources such as Windows XP or earlier versions of Windows.
• ICMP and ICMPv6 Provide ICMP statistics. ICMP is used by tools such as Ping, Tracert, and PathPing. Use these counters only if you are actively using ICMP to test network connectivity.
• IPsec AuthIPv4, IPsec AuthIPv6, IPsec Driver, IPsec IKEv4, and IPsec IKEv6 Provide Internet Protocol security (IPsec) statistics. Use these counters if you are experiencing networking problems and IPsec is enabled in your environment.
• IPv4 and IPv6 These categories provide Layer 3 networking information, such as fragmentation statistics. If you need to monitor total network utilization, you should use the Network Interface counters instead.
• NBT Connection Provides information about bytes sent and received for NetBIOS networking, such as file and printer sharing.
• Network Interface The most useful category for troubleshooting, this provides counters for all network traffic sent to and from a single network adapter. These counters are the most reliable way to measure total network utilization. Network Interface counters also provide information about errors.
• Redirector Provides statistics gathered from the Windows redirector, which helps direct traffic to and from different networking features. Interpreting most of these counters requires a detailed understanding of the Windows network stack. However, the Network Errors/sec counter can be useful for diagnosing network problems.
• Server Provides statistics related to sharing files and printers, including bandwidth used and the number of errors. Use these counters when troubleshooting file and printer sharing from the server.
• TCPv4 and TCPv6 Provide information about TCP connections. Of particular interest for troubleshooting are the Connection Failures, Connections Active, and Connections Established counters.
• UDPv4 and UDPv6 Provide information about UDP communications. Use these counters to determine whether a computer is sending or receiving UDP data, such as DNS requests. Monitor the Datagrams No Port/sec and Datagrams Received Errors counters to determine whether a computer is receiving unwanted UDP traffic.

To access Performance Monitor, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Expand System Tools, expand Performance, and then expand Monitoring Tools. Click Performance Monitor.
3. Add counters to the real-time graph by clicking the green plus sign on the toolbar.