For more useful tips, see 10 Windows 8 tips, tricks and hacks. If you need help getting up to speed with Windows 8, see Windows 8 cheat sheet.
A little-known tool called the Resource Monitor does a very good job of tracking down performance problems and fixing them. Although it's not new -- it's been included in Windows since Vista -- it's still a great way to find out about the resources your system uses and to see what applications and services are making the most use of your system.
Based on that, you can decide which apps and services to shut down and which to keep running. To run it, type resmon at the Start screen and then click the resmon.
Note: If you're using a company-owned PC and don't have Administrator privileges, you may not be able to run the Resource Monitor. But never fear: You can still use the Task Manager and most other tools covered in this story to troubleshoot performance problems.
If you are able to get into the Resource Monitor, start on the Overview tab. It offers a snapshot of your system's resource usage, including CPU use, disk use, network use and memory use. The screen is divided into two. On the left-hand side you'll see every process running on your system, by resource category CPU, Disk, Network, and Memory , along with details about the usage of each process.
A process is any program that runs in Windows, from a tiny background task to a complex application such as a Web browser. On the right-hand side you'll see moving graphs of their cumulative use over time. You can see at a glance whether your CPU, disk, network or memory use is maxing out. If any are, you know you've got a problem, and you know the general category of problem. For more details about any of those categories, click the appropriate tab across the top of the Resource Monitor.
Each tab shows you what applications or services are making use of that particular resource, along with other useful information. Those that use the CPU the most are listed at the top; those that use it the least are listed at the bottom. The display in each tab varies according to what's most useful.
For example, the Memory tab shows, in addition to what programs and services are using memory, how much memory is currently used, cached, reserved for hardware and so on. Once you've zeroed in on the problem, you can do something about it. If you've got apps and services overtaxing your CPU, for instance, you can close any of them by right-clicking it and selecting End Process from the drop-down menu.
You might also consider looking for alternatives to those apps and services, and then using Resource Monitor later on to see whether those alternatives have lower resource usage. Note that most of the information that the Resource Monitor displays is also shown in the Task Manager, another built-in performance tool we'll cover later in this article.
Redone for Windows 8, the Task Manager has a more comprehensive set of tools and information than the Resource Monitor.
That said, the Resource Monitor is still a useful tool for troubleshooting performance problems because it offers a quick at-a-glance look at your system, with in-depth information on each of its tabs.
It offers a historical view of overall system stability and even includes detailed information about system crashes. Armed with this information, you can pinpoint the sources of problems and take steps to eliminate them. To launch the Reliability Monitor, type reliability at the Start screen, click Settings, and click the "View reliability history" icon that appears on the left under Settings.
The blue line running across the graph shows your system's stability over time. It's based on a number that Windows calculates to gauge your system's overall reliability.
The maximum is 10 and the minimum is 1. Every time there's a system failure, application failure or similar event, the index drops, sometimes sharply -- particularly if there's been more than one failure in a day.
Each day your system doesn't have a failure, the index rises a little bit. On days there are failures, you'll see red icons, divided into rows by type of failure -- application, Windows or miscellaneous hardware, drivers, etc. The chart also has icons for warnings about unsuccessful updates and for information about successful updates and installations.
Select any day with a failure or other event, and at the bottom of the screen you'll see details about those events, divided into categories. Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Thanks for your feedback. Title ;Slow performance. This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread.
I have the same question 7. Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. Nirmal S. Hi marcd7 , Thank you for posting your query in the Microsoft Community Forums. Make it a practice to schedule or manually run optimization at least once a month for an easy performance boost. To launch this utility, simply go into the Charms Bar, click Search and type Optimize. Then, click the Defragment and optimize your drives link that appears. It seems that everything from antivirus software to document readers comes with sneaky and largely unnecessary toolbars and add-ons, which often slow systems down.
Internet Explorer allows users to toggle toolbars and add-ons individually by using the Manage Add-Ons menu, or in one fell swoop by way of the Reset The lighter you make your browser, the more stable and responsive it will be. Power management is a wonderful thing, but when you are trying to squeeze the most out of every hardware dollar, consider tweaking the power management settings to allow systems to run at their maximum speed.
Windows 8. Make sure your clients are using Energy Saver. System Maintenance is a handy utility included in Windows 8. To access this tool, open the Charms Bar, click Settings and the Control Panel link, and then launch the Troubleshooting applet.
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