Fun with Perfmon: performance monitoring can be an invaluable method for checking systems and services integrity. Many facets of Windows 2000/XP/2003 can be measured and analyzed using Performance Monitor (perfmon). The results, as seen below, can be viewed in three different ways: graphically, as a histogram, and as a report. I measured some IIS web services and Exchange Server statistics over a period of 1,950,128 seconds (equals 32,502.14 minutes, which equals 541.70 hours, which equals ~23 days). The focus was on DNS, SMTP and Web Services, all of which are crucial to running an e-mail and web server. The specific measurements can be seen in the final snapshot, the Report Results. The web server received many Logon and Connection Attempts. But the "Get" requests were even more numerous, mainly because most web pages, even static ones, contain numerous files (i.e. images), and all files are included as a separate request. Try it yourself! Open this link, then click the Plus (+) button on the new page and add a counter. Start with the default, "% Processor Time" (select Add), and read the "Explain". Note the explanation, which says, "This counter was designed as a primary indicator of processor activity". The main means to open up Perfmon is to do a Start/Run, type perfmon. Hit the + button, and look through the many potential selections. Let it run for as long as needed.
Note: you must have Windows 2000, XP or higher to play.