Performance Monitor Hangs on Startup or When Adding Counters (196712)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
This article was previously published under Q196712
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information on how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" online Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" online Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

The Performance Monitor utility, Perfmon.exe, may stop responding (hang) when starting or when trying to add counters.

CAUSE

This problem can be caused by the failure of one or more extensible counter DLLs. To try and narrow it down, you could try to disable the extensible counter DLLs to prevent them from being loaded. If this solves the problem, enable the extensible counter DLLs one at a time to see when it breaks again.

RESOLUTION

To disable one or more extensible counter DLLs:

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

  1. Start the Registry Editor (RegEdt32.exe).
  2. Under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following subkey:
    System\CurrentControlSet\Servic
  3. Click Find Key on the View menu.
  4. Type Performance as the search string, and then search down from there.
  5. At each Performance entry you find, select the Library value and modify the library name by replacing the DLL portion of the name three Xs (xxx).

    For example, change OrigLib.dll to OrigLib.xxx
  6. When you have done this for each Performance entry under the CurrentControlSet\Services key, restart Perfmon to see whether it works. If it does, repeat the above two steps, but restore the original library name and try Perfmon after each change to see which library caused the fault.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information on finding Performance Monitor problems, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

152513 Troubleshooting Performance Monitor Counter Problems

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:8/10/2001
Keywords:kbprb KB196712
©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.