If you have a computer that runs the Windows Operating System, you may come to believe over time that the computer is slowing down. In many cases, this is true, but how can you really know that your computer is slowing down, or how sluggish it’s getting? Are specific drivers causing problems at start up or shut down? How would you know?

Vista Event Viewer Can Trace Start Up and Shut Down Trouble

If you run Windows Vista, you can access a report generated by the OS itself that will tell you exactly what’s happening when you start up and shut down your computer. The Event Viewer is good for determining whether you have a problem, and if so, where it is. This is an excellent way to track your Windows Vista operating system over time. If you pay attention to what your computer is doing, you’ll know whether the computer seems slow or really is slow, and better yet, you’ll know what’s the most likely cause of the delay.

The Event Viewer, which is built into the OS, maintains a log of the things your computer does when it starts up and shuts down, as well as at other critical times. The Event Viewer does much more than this, but it can be especially useful when you’re trying to monitor your computer’s performance.
To get to the Event Viewer, choose Run and type eventvwr.msc in the box. The Event Viewer utility will start up. Choose Applications and Servce Log\Microsoft\Windows\Diagnostics-Performance to get to the Diagnostics and Performance part of the Event Viewer.

Activate the center pane (marked Operational) and you’ll see a time-stamped list of “events” that have occurred at the most recent startup or shutdown. Select an event on the list. In the pane immediately below the Operational pane, you can get general or specific details about the event, when it occurred, what happened, what triggered the “event” and so on. Windows will keep track of what time it started to boot and what time the boot process ended. If you monitor this particular statistic, you can tell if your computer is booting more slowly over time.

Each event in the viewer is tagged with a numerical ID. Event numbers between 100 and 199 indicated events that took place at startup. Event numbers between 200 and 299 indicate events that occurred at shutdown. Events numbered between 300 and 399 are related to standby performance and events numbered between 400 and 499 are related to system performance.
If you haven’t played around with the Windows Event Viewer in Vista, take a few minutes to check out this useful system performance-debugging tool.

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