Using Perfmon to Analyze High CPU Usage.

Scenario

Your CPU utilization is maxing out and you want to find how what is responsible for the high CPU.  Sometimes the process is obvious in that you can look at task manager to see who is using the most CPU, but that alone doesn't give you a snapshot of what is happening on your server over a period of time.

To begin, use the instructions from this article to capture perfmon data while you are experiencing the high CPU state.  Let it capture a decent amount of time so that you can see trends.

After you capture the perfmon data, open it up by double clicking on the appropriate .blg file in the C:\Perflogs folder.  You should see something like the above image.  Unfortunately, this image isn't terribly helpful.  So we will need to remove all the counters and then start by adding counters systematically.

Creating Secure Personal Drive Space

Scenario

Your job has given you a "work laptop" that you also use (legitimately, of course) for your own occasional personal computing, so you've amassed some personal files over the course of your employment. Now suppose that computer got taken away from you before you had a chance to get those files off? Perhaps one day you walk into your office and find a brand new laptop waiting for you. Cool! Except - where is your old one? "Don't worry!" says Helpful I.T. Guy, "All your work files are on the network, just log in to this new one and you'll have them." Yes, but were your personal files deleted? And if not, does the person who now has your old computer have access to those files?

That's not an unlikely scenario - and worse ones can be imagined. What if one day your HR rep walks in with a security guard to announce that you've been downsized - "Stop what you're doing on that computer, gather your personal belongings, and come with us." Now what?

In this article I will explain my setup for avoiding issues like this. In reality the entire setup is fairly straightforward and not very time consuming, it actually took me several times longer to write the article than to do the setup! So don't be afraid to jump in.