Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

Two of the biggest challenges of troubleshooting hardware problems are determining when the problem began occurring and what might have changed on the computer to introduce the problem. Windows Vista introduced the Reliability Monitor snap-in (as part of the Computer Management console) so that you can easily view application installations, driver installations, and significant failures over several weeks or months.

With Windows 7, Reliability Monitor is now integrated with the Action Center to better correlate system changes and events. Reliability Monitor providing details about events on a specific day, including a failed application installation and security updates.

Beyond the improved user interface, Windows 7 extends Reliability Monitor by exposing reliability data via the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Using WMI, you can gather reliability data remotely and process it using Windows PowerShell scripts and WMIrelated cmdlets (pronounced command-lets). Now, you can use WMI to centrally monitor the reliability of computers running Windows 7 throughout the network.

Management tools such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager can centrally monitor the reliability data from all computers running Windows 7, or you can create your own Windows PowerShell scripts to monitor reliability. By centrally monitoring reliability data, you can identify unreliable computers that are affecting user productivity even if the users don't take the time to call the Support Center. Reliability Monitor is discussed in more detail later in this tutorial.