In Windows XP/Vista/7, and Windows Server 2003/Server 2003 R2 or Server 2008/Server 2008...

In Windows XP/Vista/7, and Windows Server 2003/Server 2003 R2 or Server 2008/Server 2008 R2, you can monitor the processor usage through the Task Manager.

To monitor processor usage:

1. Right-click the taskbar and click Task Manager (or click Start Task Manager in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2) on the shortcut menu.

2. Click the Performance tab, if it is not already displayed (see Figure 3-2).

3. Watch the CPU Usage and the CPU Usage History graphs. How do the graphs change as you are watching? Does the CPU ever go over 80 percent usage and stay at this level for a long time?

4. What other information can you monitor on the Performance tab? How can you determine the amount of RAM or physical memory in the computer? How much memory is used by the kernel?

5. Close Task Manager.