In the past, you needed to rely on software from your PC maker or a third party to run diagnostics on Windows.Windows Vista includes functionality to generate detailed reports, including system, LAN and wireless diagnostics along with a performance report.In this article, I’ll show you how to run these reports and find out what’s going on with your PC.
To generate the reports, you'll need to open Windows Vista's Reliability and Performance Monitor. To open the Reliability Monitor, type the word Reliability into Vista's Start search box and then click the icon at the top of the Start menu.
In the Reliability Monitor, click the arrows next to Data Collector Sets and then System. Right click the diagnostic you want to run and then click Start, as shown here.
Each of the reports take about a minute to complete, and you'll see the following status window while the diagnostics run.
When the diagnostic completes, Vista will present you with a report detailing any problems it found. Historical reports can be found in the Reliability Monitor under Reports, then System.My System Diagnostics Report shows no problems.
The screenshot doesn't show it, but there are detail sections for Software Configuration, Hardware Configuration, CPU and others below the main report area. My System Performance report also came out clean.
These reports are useful and easy, so it was definitely a good idea for Microsoft to include them in Vista.
In the past, you needed to rely on software from your PC maker or a third party to run diagnostics on Windows.
Show/Hide comment form