Performance
Data Helper
You can use
the performance data provided by applications, services, and drivers to
determine system bottlenecks and fine-tune system and application performance.
The easiest way to display the performance data is to use the Performance
Monitor application located in the Administrative Tools group.
If you need
to collect performance data for your application, the easiest way to do this is
to use the interface provided by the Performance Data Helper (PDH) interface.
Applications that need more control over performance data collection can use
the registry interface directly. This is the method that is used by the
functions in PDH.DLL and by the Performance Monitor. It is more efficient for
the Performance Monitor to use the registry interface, because it displays
counters grouped by object. If you are retrieving individual counters, rather
than a group of counters from a particular object, it is just as efficient to
use the PDH interface.
This overview
discusses both interfaces.
The PDH Interface
The Registry Interface
In addition,
this overview discusses how to add your own performance counters, by creating
an extensible performance DLL. For more information, see Adding Performance
Counters.