History of CPU usage for all processes

How can I view historical CPU usage for all the running processes in Windows, including those processes that were started after the history collection had started? I am interested in a way to collect this information automatically.

user626528

Posted 2013-06-19T13:26:40.183

Reputation: 783

2To the dowvoter, can you explain why this question is bad, I think it is clear and explains exactly what the OP needs, it is also a solvable problem. – Scott Chamberlain – 2013-06-19T13:44:35.313

Do you want the summed up total CPU usage for all processes? Or do you want the individual CPU usage for all processes? – Werner Henze – 2013-06-19T14:16:10.617

@Werner Henze, Second one. The first one is available in numerous tools. – user626528 – 2013-06-20T02:47:17.437

Answers

The tool to use is Process Monitor:

Start Process Monitor
Set a filter if required, otherwise uncheck all defaults and click OK to trace all
Enter menu Options > Profiling Events
Click "Generate thread prof‌iling events", choose the frequency, and click OK
To see the collected historical data at any time, enter menu Tools > Process Activity Summary...
Sort the list as required; double-click any one process to see its history.

Be prepared for a very large log file.

For a nice description of the above with screenshots see this answer.

harrymc

Posted 2013-06-19T13:26:40.183

Reputation: 306 093

In Windows 7 there is the Performance Monitor.

You must enable it, set the log options and then leave it running. It is only historical for as long as you run the application.

The file is :C:\Windows\system32\perfmon.exe

A link, provided by Scott below with a good tutorial / step by step instructions.

Austin T French

Posted 2013-06-19T13:26:40.183

Reputation: 9 766

Here is a tutorial with pictures showing how to set up tracking CPU Usage in perfmon. Not covered in the tutorial, but in perfmon you can set your collection sets to start up with windows and run all the time, if you do make sure you set a max size on the log so it will delete older records as it adds new ones. I have forgotten to do this and used a whole 100 GB hard drive up after forgetting about a set I left on for a few months.

– Scott Chamberlain – 2013-06-19T13:42:14.430

@ScottChamberlain Thanks, I added your link in the answer. – Austin T French – 2013-06-19T13:45:11.237

Resource monitor and performance monitor are completely different tools. And Perfmon requires to add every process you need to monitor explicitly. It's impossible to monitor all running processes automatically. – user626528 – 2013-06-20T02:45:55.547

@user70010 You are right, I pointed to the exe I meant, I linked to the article that referenced what I meant, but I goofed on the name. Corrected now, thanks. – Austin T French – 2013-06-20T03:05:15.367

1This will only collect data for processes that ran when setting up Performance Monitor logging. It will not show CPU usage for processes created after logging started. – Werner Henze – 2013-06-20T08:03:59.740