How in the Tech

Give Vista a Health and Performance Check-Up

By Adam Myers ⋅ February 9, 2009 ⋅ Tags: System Administration, Vista

Microsoft introduced a number of tools in Windows Vista that help in diagnosing of system problems. If you are the one that typically has to fix or address problems, you are quite aware of such utilities as Task Manager, Event Viewer, and Performance Monitor. With Vista, there is one new tool you should keep in your arsenal – the System Health Report. In the same way that proper physical health is maintained by seeing a family doctor regularly, Microsoft has the same idea when it comes to your computer. Results from a series of tests and performance metrics are gathered, organized, and presented in an intelligent list – albeit somewhat technical. Does your computer receive a clean bill of health? The results may surprise you!

1. To launch, click the Vista Start Orb and in the search box type performance. One of the results returned will be Performance Information and Tools.



2. Click Advanced Tools.



3. Here you see many of the performance and diagnostic utilities provided to you by Microsoft. The one we are interested in is at the very bottom, Generate a system health report.



4. The report will begin running immediately and will take a minute or so to complete.

   

5. After the report is done collect the data you are presented with the findings. I was surprised to find my computer failing a few things. Some caution must be taken though as a Failed test isn’t necessarily black or white. In my results you can see that I failed the Hardware Device and Driver Checks test. Further digging reveals it is because I have a network adapter installed, but disabled. A disabled device obviously can’t function correct; though in my instance it is disabled for a reason.

Not only can the system health check-up reveal existing problems it has the ability to predict future problems. As an example, the battery of tests including scrubbing the SMART data from your hard drive – a series of metrics that can keep track of disk errors and such. The multitude of information the report includes is staggering and full-on geeky. Still, there is useful information provided for users of every level.