Friday, July 30, 2010

Your Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

Friendly Computers found this article useful to keep your PC on the right track and would like to share it with you.

One of the cool little features that arose from the ashes of the disaster known as Windows Vista was the Reliability Monitor. A little-known tool which is almost hidden within the action center, the Reliability tool is great for tracking your computers reliability.

I remember using it when I was running Vista and nearly forgot about it until I was reminded by a weekly podcast to which I subscribe. I did my best to see if we have ever covered the Reliability Monitor here on Windows7News and as far as I can tell, we haven’t.

“Reliability Monitor is an advanced tool that measures hardware and software problems and other changes to your computer. It provides a stability index that ranges from 1 (the least stable) to 10 (the most stable). You can use the index to help evaluate the reliability of your computer. Any change you make to your computer or problem that occurs on your computer affects the stability index.”

Per Microsoft, the Reliability Monitor is intended for advanced computer users, such as software developers and network administrators, but it is easy to use, so even moderate users will have no problem using the tool to track their system over time.

There are two ways to find your PC’s Reliability history:

You can use Windows Search and begin typing the word ‘Reliability’ until the option shows.

Or

Right-click on the white flag in your taskbar to open Action Center.

Click Maintenance. Then, under Check for solutions to problem reports, clickView reliability history.

rel1 400x435 Your Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

In Reliability Monitor, you can:

  • Click any event on the graph to view its details.

  • Click Days, or Weeks, to view the stability index over a specific period of time.

  • Click items in the Action column to view more information about it.

  • Click View all problem reports to view only the problems that have occurred on your computer. This view does not include the other computer events that show up in Reliability Monitor, such as events about software installation.

The layout of the program is pretty self-explanatory and very basic.

rel2 Your Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

You can click on specific unreliable instances to view the details.

rel3 400x266 Your Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

The Reliability Monitor is a very basic program with a very basic use. It’s one of the many useful tools provided natively in Windows 7 which can help you keep your PC on the right track.

Source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/07/28/reliability-monitor/