While troubleshooting performance issues with Notification Server it can be very useful to have a set of performance counters, but how can we do this in Microsoft Windows Server? 

Create a performance monitor data collector from the attached template

1. Run 'perfmon.msc'
2. Expand 'Data Collector Sets', and right click on 'User Defined'
3. New --> Data Collector Set
4. Put in the name of the new collection and make sure that 'Create from a template' is checked then hit 'next'
5. Hit the 'Browse' button and select the XML file attached to this document and then click the 'Finish' button
6. Now you can right-click on the new user defined data collector set and select 'start'
 

Create a performance monitor data collector manually

1. Run 'perfmon.msc'
2. Expand 'Data Collector Sets', and right-click on 'User Defined'
3. New --> Data Collector Set
4. Put in the name of the new collection and make sure that 'Create manually (Advanced)' is checked then hit 'next'
5. Under 'Create data logs' make sure to check 'Performance counter' then hit 'Next'
6. Click the 'Add' button and select the counters you would like then hit 'OK'
7. Next hit the 'Finish' button 
8. Next expand 'User Defined' in the left pane and left click on the new user defined data collector to highlight it. Then in the right pane right-click on the datacollector and select 'properties' 
9. Make sure under 'log format' select 'Binary' and then click 'apply' and then 'ok' 
10.  Now you can right-click on the new user defined data collector set and select 'start'

 

Note: The file that perfmon creates will be stored under C:\Perflogs\etc... by default
Note: The file format that will be most useful will end in .blg (Binary under log format!) and can be opened by perfmon on our machines.