Configure performance counters in Windows NT

Performance counters are enabled by default to allow applications such as Performance Logs and Alerts to subscribe to these counters and measure performance. One can disable these performance counters to free resources.

There is a tool in the Win2k resource kit called Exctrlst.exe, which makes it easy to disable performance counters for installed services:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \System \CurrentControlSet \Services \Service Name \Performance]
Disable Performance Counters = 1

More Info MS KB179456
More Info MS KB248993
More Info MS KB266416

There is a PhysicalDisk object, which allows monitoring of physical disks and logical drives. Windows 2000 monitors the physical disks by default, and it can be turned off by running this command and perform a reboot:

DISKPERF -N

To turn it on again run this command:

DISKPERF -YD

Note Windows XP only activates monitoring of the physical disks and logical drives on demand.

More Info MS KB253251
More Info MS KB296187

There is an I/O counter, which monitors the I/O for each process (Can be seen in the Task Manager with the columns I/O Writes, I/O Other, etc.). If this monitoring information is not important then one can disable it with this DWORD registry key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet \Control \Session Manager \I/O System]
CountOperations = 0 (Default = Key does not exist)

Credits ntcompatible.com