PdhTool
cheztabor
Last Updated March 12, 2003

Install | Use | Source | Download | Changes | License | Contact

PdhTool is a small GUI application for collecting system and application data measured by the performance data helper library.

These data can also be collected with the Performance applet that ships with Windows. I wrote PdhTool because I love the information but I hate the available user interface and data presentation.

PdhTool requires pdh.dll. The library is not supported by, and consequently PdhTool will not work on, systems running Windows 95, 98, or ME.

pdh.dll is installed as part of the operating system for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. For Windows NT 4.0, the pdh.dll is provided with the Platform SDK, and you might get errors if the library is missing from your system, or if it is too old. If you're running NT 4.0, and get an error when starting pdhtool, install the newest pdh.dll from here.

Install

Download and then double-click setup.exe from the link below. Follow the prompts.

Use

Starting:

1. Open the Start Menu and select PdhTool
   
   
2. From the PdhTool's main menu, Select Counters | Browse. (Alternatively, click the eyeglasses button on the toolbar.)
   
   
3. In the Browse dialog, select:
   • An Object
   • An Instance if the listbox is not disabled. Some objects do not have instances.
   • A Counter.
   
   
4. From PdhTool's main menu, select Counters | Collect to add the current value to the listview. (Alternatively, click the gear button on the toolbar.)
   
   

Stopping:

1. Please be aware that the Close [x] box in the tool's upper-right-corner doesn't work the same as it does for most applications. When you click [x], the tool will be minimized to the system tray. This helps prevent me from inadvertently closing PdhTool while collecting data.

2. When PdhTool is minimized to an icon in the system tray, you can restore it by left-clicking the icon.

3. You can exit the tool in any of three ways:
   • Select File | Exit from the main menu.
     
     
   • Press Alt+F4 when the PdhTool window has the keyboard focus.
     
     
   • Select Exit from the tray icon's context menu.
     
     

Source

source.zip contains a Microsoft Visual C++ .NET project. It is built with ATL and WTL. It has no dependencies on .NET's CLR.

Download

setup.exe (166k)

source.zip (56k)

Changes

October 15, 2001

• Initial release.

March 12, 2003

• Fixed a bug revealed under Windows XP.
• Recompiled under Visual C++ .NET. No runtime CLR dependencies.

License

Copyright© 2001-2003 Tim Tabor. All rights reserved. No warrantees extended.

Contact

Please report bugs and feature requests to me.

Enjoy.

Tim Tabor