How to sustain your data collector set through a reboot!

This is a special post, from the Microsoft Premier Field Engineers (PFE) Vital Signs Instructors alias…something we felt should be shared.

EDIT 2016: Note that Clint Huffman made a post to do this in logman in a black box recorder stype. I recommend following that too if you need the functionality: Clint's world, party time, excellent

If you had noticed, it’s difficult to sustain a data collector set in Perfmon for 2008 R2 through a reboot, so it automatically starts after the reboot.  Well, here is how to make it work properly.

1. Define a User Defined Data Collector Set in Perfmon. You don’t have to define any schedule for it.

2. Go to Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Task Scheduler

3. Browse to Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows –> PLA

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4. Enable Hidden Tasks (View ->  Show Hidden Tasks)

5. You should see all your User Defined Data Collector Sets in here.

6. Open your set, go to Triggers and set up “At Startup“ trigger

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Hope this helps you with your performance data collection needs!

Special shout out to Martin Vokurek in Prague for developing the details on this!

28 Comments

  1. It only starts if the current log file is deleted, any way to make it start and continue with the existing log file?

  2. Jeff,
    thank you very much for sharing this important information. Your way how to describe each step is great and helped a lot. *thumbs up*

    Greetings from Germany.

  3. Wow! Thanks. It's so retarded that that isn't in the data collector set creation interface. It has an option to keep it running for a specific amount of time (like a week), but can't even restart after a reboot?! Damn that's stupid.

  4. Hello Jeff,

    I end up in this blog after trying to search around for the same questions. =)
    Is still help ppl like me after 5 years.

    Could I also trouble to check is there any command in the dos which I can get this setup without going through the GUI?

    I trying to get similar setup via psexec for about close to 50 over servers.
    I tried look at logman and schtasks with no avail.

    Regards,
    Richie

  5. If I wanted to use this as a way to track performance on PCs in a domain environment. What would be the best way to push it out to the machines with group policy and how would I make sure that if the computer was rebooted it would start tracking again.

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