Name
PerformanceCounter
Synopsis
This class represents a Windows NT, 2000, or XP performance counter that
can be accessed using the Performance
Administrative Tool. PerformanceCounters
already exist for system devices, such as processor, disk, or memory
usage, as well as for system resources, such as processes or
threads. Using the PerformanceCounter class,
you can both read from and write performance data to existing custom counters.
To create your own custom performance counters, use
PerformanceCounterCategory.Create(). You can
write to a performance counter by using one of the
PerformanceCounter constructors that takes the
boolean readonly argument. Set that argument to
false to create a performance counter that you
can write to. To set the value of a performance counter, call
IncrementBy(), Increment(),
Decrement(), or set the
RawValue to the desired value.
To access an existing performance counter, create an instance of
PerformanceCounter with the
CategoryName and CounterName
set to that of an available category and an existing performance
counter. The category and counter names are case-insensitive, so
you could sample the available memory by calling the constructor as
PerformanceCounter("memory", "available mbytes").
Consult the Performance Administrative Tool for the available
performance counters. You can explicitly set the
CategoryName and CounterName
(and the optional InstanceName and
MachineName) properties, if you choose not to set
these using the constructor.
To ...