Eventually, you will experience issues on your Windows 10 computer. If your problem becomes more complex, it can be challenging to resolve it. Thankfully, you can always learn how to troubleshoot Windows 10 with the Reliability Monitor. If you are not familiar with this built-in component, you can read through this post. We are going to share all the essential details you need to know about this feature.
How to Check the Reliability History on Windows 10
Ever since Microsoft launched Windows Vista back in 2007, the tech company has included the Reliability Monitor as one of the operating system’s built-in features. Since this application has a user-friendly interface, it can help you understand what happens behind a specific error.
The Reliability Monitor allows users to view the reliability history, making it useful for troubleshooting common Windows 10 issues. Thanks to this feature, your operating system can keep track of system failures and errors. Consequently, you can get more details about the errors you encountered in the past.
In a way, you can compare the Reliability Monitor to the Event Viewer. However, the former has a simpler interface, allowing you to find particular errors with ease. If you want to learn how to check the reliability history on Windows 10, follow the instructions below:
- Go to your taskbar, then click the Search icon.
- Inside the Search box, type “reliability” (no quotes).
- From the results, select View Reliability History.
If you wish, you can launch the Reliability Monitor via the Run dialog box. To proceed, follow the steps below:
- Launch the Run dialog box by pressing Windows Key+R on your keyboard.
- Inside the Run dialog box, type “perfmon /rel” (no quotes).
- Click OK.
It is also worth noting that you can access the Control Panel to start the Reliability Monitor. Here are the steps:
- On your keyboard, press Windows Key+X. Doing so will launch the Win+X menu.
- Select Control Panel from the options.
- Once the Control Panel is up, click System and Security.
- On the next window, select Security and Maintenance.
- Once the Security and Maintenance window shows up, expand the contents of the Maintenance section.
- Click the ‘View reliability history’ link.
How to Work with Windows 10’s Reliability Monitor
To be able to learn how to troubleshoot Windows 10 with the Reliability Monitor, you need to understand the reports it generates. The Reliability Monitor is a component of the Reliability & Performance Monitor snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). It is essential to mention that this feature comes with all modern versions of the Windows operating system. As such, you do not need to start MMC just to begin configuring and adding snap-ins to make the Reliability Monitor function.
What the Reliability Monitor does is access the Windows Event Manager to acquire data about your system. It focuses on events that affect the reliability of your OS. Generally, the Reliability Monitor tracks five primary categories of information, including:
- Windows failures: These include operating system errors like hardware issues.
- Application failures: These include problems related to software programs, including the ‘MS Outlook stopped working’ error message.
- Miscellaneous failures: These consist of failures or errors usually associated with peripherals. An example would be a disk-related problem.
- Warnings: These include errors or failures that do not necessarily affect system behavior.
- Information: This includes issues related to system updates and changes.
Over time, the monitoring results are collected. The highest reliability score is 10, while a grade level of 1 is as low as it can get. Lightly exercised and stable systems typically get 10 values. On the other hand, heavily abused and exercised test systems can generate readings with values of around 1.7.
While the Reliability Monitor tracks the five types of problems that we already mentioned, it only generates a text form of the results for three categories. You can see the details at the bottom of its console window.
The Reliability Monitor uses an internal file format to store the reliability history. That said, you can go to the lower-left portion of the console and click the ‘Save reliability history’ button to acquire a snapshot of the data in XML format.
How to Troubleshoot Windows 10 with the Reliability Monitor
Let’s use the graph below as an example for troubleshooting errors on a Windows 10 PC.
The upper portion of the graph shows the reliability score of the operating system. On the other hand, you can look at the lower-half area of the graph to see the events that the Reliability Monitor identified. These events are organized according to the five categories we discussed earlier.
You can click a column to see what a red X or a yellow warning symbol stands for. Once you’ve done that, you will see all the events for that date. Keep in mind that the information you’ll see only includes a shortened list of the crucial events for a specific day.
If you want to get more information about a critical event, you can click the ‘View technical details’ link beside it. In most cases, you will be able to gain a better understanding of the issue by reading the text below the Description area.
If you are an advanced user, you can take advantage of the Event Viewer and troubleshoot Windows 10 issues effectively. However, if you want an easier way to look at critical events, warnings, or errors, you can opt for the Reliability Monitor.
It can be difficult to track all the things that are happening in your PC. Needless to say, it can be challenging to keep your computer secure and safe. Thankfully, you can use Auslogics Anti-Malware to ensure that your PC is protected against threats and attacks. One of the great things about this tool is it allows you to schedule automatic scans. So, you can have the peace of mind knowing that all your computing tasks are safe and secure.
Which do you prefer for troubleshooting issues: the Event Viewer or the Reliability Monitor?
Let us know in the comments below!
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