With Windows 10 growing in popularity and programs continuing to want more and more RAM, knowing more about Resource Monitor and how to use it can prove to be a very valuable skill for any sysadmin at work or Power User at home.
There's a saying my granddaddy taught me. "You can never have too much money, happiness, or RAM", he said, and truer words have not been spoken. Of course, I might add a few things to this list, like pizza, puppies, and bandwidth, but those are for another time. With Windows 10 growing in popularity and programs continuing to consume more and more RAM, knowing about this great tool and how to use it will prove to be a very valuable skill for any sysadmin at work or PowerUser at home. So in this article we will take a close look at Resource Monitor, and more specifically, at what it can do around Memory.
Microsoft states that the minimum memory requirements for Windows 10 are 1GB for the 32bit version, and 2GB for the 64bit version, but we all know that minimums are for chumps. Of course, sometimes, we have to deal with what the company issues us, or what our budget can afford, so we don't always have 16GB of RAM at our disposal. In those times, keeping a close eye on what is consuming our precious RAM is even more important. Enter Resource Monitor.
What is it?
For starters, let's talk about what Resource Monitor actually is. It is rather like your computer's Mr. Hyde to Performance Monitor's Dr. Jekyll, if you've seen the BBC production Jekyll, staring James Nesbitt. And if you haven't seen that, just trust me. The Resource Monitor is the hidden part of Performance Monitor that only comes out to play when the cat is away. And it is the much more fun of the two. You can use Resource Monitor to get a much more point in time view of what's going on with your system than you ever could with Task Manager, and more readily than with PerfMon.
But if you want a more technical definition of what it is, Wikipedia defines it as "a system application in some Microsoft Windows operating systems, which displays information about the use of hardware (CPU, memory, disk, and network) and software (file handles and modules) resources in real time." Perhaps their explanation is more to the point, but no more accurate.
Resource Monitor runs under the Perfmon.exe process, which is totally ironic since you cannot actually get to Resource Monitor from Performance Monitor. Like I said, very Jekyll and Hyde! It has five tabs, which display an overview of the current system consumption of the "big four" resource categories; CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network, along with drill downs into each. While it displays details in real time, it does also display a running 60 second history of the same.
It's not a replacement for Task Manager, though you can get to it from there, nor is it a replacement for Performance Monitor. But it does serve a niche that many third party applications have been developed to do in the past, including several of the SysInternals suite members. Don't think of it as a complete replacement of tools you already use and are familiar with, but more of a pocket multi-tool that will do a lot for you in an easy to carry form, and often does enough that you don't need to bring out the whole toolbox.
Written by Casper Manes
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
