Reliability Monitor vs. Performance Monitor: Comparing Two Underutilized Windows Tools
Windows comes packed with many different tools for troubleshooting purposes, so there’s a good chance that you missed using most of them. Two such underutilized tools are the Reliability Monitor and the Performance Monitor.
Both of these tools can help you identify system instability and performance-related issues with your computer. Want to know more about them? We’ve explained the key differences and use cases of the Reliability Monitor and the Performance Monitor below.
What Are the Reliability and Performance Monitors on Windows?
The Reliability Monitor and Performance Monitor are built-in Windows tools that help you find problems with your system’s performance or reliability.
The Reliability Monitor shows a graphical view of your computer’s stability over time. It even displays a timeline of system events. In simple words, it shows you the date and other information of events like application crashes, hardware failures, and system errors.
Suppose you are experiencing sudden system freezes and want to identify the root cause; you’re able to get help using the Reliability Monitor. You can view the exact reason behind the system freeze inside the reliability history.
On the other hand, the Performance Monitor is another in-builtWindows diagnostics toolthat provides detailed information about your computer’s performance. You can view real-time performance metrics like CPU usage, disk, and memory usage through the app.
The Reliability Monitor’s Key Features
Now that you know the uses of both tools, let’s find out some of the significant differences between them and when to use each one on Windows.
Performance Monitor Key Features
As highlighted above, the Performance Monitor tool is not for non-techy geeks, as it shows in-depth technical details. However, if you’re a system administrator or a technician interested in monitoring a computer’s performance, then it’s a valuable tool for you.
Here are some of the noticeable features of the Performance Monitor:
So, what’s the bottom line of using the Performance Monitor? Though it is not for everyone, it still caters to the needs of some who love playing with technical statistics and numerical data.
The Advanced Functions of the Reliability and Performance Monitors
The Reliability and Performance Monitors have advanced functions allowing you to customize and filter data.
The Reliability Monitor allows you to filter events by application, source, and event type, making it easier to identify specific types of system events. But is that useful for you?
Yes, indeed, filtering helps in case you want to find out the reason for a randomBlue Screen of Death erroror maybe an unfortunate system crash. The best part is that Reliability Monitor will sometimes generate a minidump (logs) to help you troubleshoot the cause.
On the other side, the Performance Monitor also helps you with filtering, but it’s far superior and advanced.
The best part is, you can also configure alerts in the Performance Monitor. By doing so, you can record the moments when specific performance metrics exceed certain thresholds. For example, you can set an alert to notify you when CPU usage exceeds 90% for more than 15 minutes. This ultimately helps you to take proactive measures to prevent system downtime.
The Different Use Cases for the Reliability and Performance Monitors
The main goal of the Reliability Monitor is to find potential problems in your system before they cause major issues.
You can use it to troubleshoot software installations, monitor system updates, and resolve Blue Screen of Death errors. But that’s not all! As Windows updates sometimes fail for no reason, Reliability Monitor may come to the rescue and highlight any issues during the update process.
The Performance Monitor can help you monitor how your system is running and find problems related to its performance. it’s possible to even use it tospeed up Windowsby analyzing the performance trends of your computer.
How to Use the Reliability and Performance Monitor
Using both tools is relatively easy on Windows. While Reliability Monitor may look more straightforward, it provides a quick overview of system stability, whereas Performance Monitor offers more detailed information, making it a better option for advanced users.
Here’s how to use Reliability Monitor and Performance Monitor on Windows:
Besides these tools, Windows is bloated with many other useful utilities to improve your experience. If you are interested in such things, check out our guide on someuseful Windows administrative tools.
Say Goodbye to Unreliable Windows Systems
To summarize everything above, you can use the Reliability Monitor for identifying the causes of any system stability issues. On the other hand, Performance Monitor can assist you in the real-time monitoring of your system performance.
Undoubtedly, both tools are useful in times of need despite having separate target audiences. you could save time and system resources by quickly identifying and resolving Windows issues by using them together wisely.
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