History of CPU usage for all processes

Question

How can I view historical CPU usage for all the running processes in Windows, including those processes that were started after the history collection had started? I am interested in a way to collect this information automatically.

To the dowvoter, can you explain why this question is bad, I think it is clear and explains exactly what the OP needs, it is also a solvable problem. — Scott Chamberlain, Jun 19 '13 at 13:44
Do you want the summed up total CPU usage for all processes? Or do you want the individual CPU usage for all processes? — Werner Henze, Jun 19 '13 at 14:16
@Werner Henze, Second one. The first one is available in numerous tools. — user626528, Jun 20 '13 at 02:47

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 29 '21 at 13:50

6

In Windows 7 there is the Performance Monitor.

You must enable it, set the log options and then leave it running. It is only historical for as long as you run the application.

The file is :C:\Windows\system32\perfmon.exe

A link, provided by Scott below with a good tutorial / step by step instructions.

edited Mar 29 '21 at 13:50

Mitch

139
7

answered Jun 19 '13 at 13:30

Austin T French

10,505
27
42

2

Here is a tutorial [with pictures](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/securitytools/archive/2009/11/04/how-to-use-perfmon-in-windows-7.aspx) showing how to set up tracking CPU Usage in perfmon. Not covered in the tutorial, but in perfmon you can set your collection sets to start up with windows and run all the time, if you do make sure you set a max size on the log so it will delete older records as it adds new ones. I have forgotten to do this and used a whole 100 GB hard drive up after forgetting about a set I left on for a few months. – Scott Chamberlain Jun 19 '13 at 13:42
@ScottChamberlain Thanks, I added your link in the answer. – Austin T French Jun 19 '13 at 13:45
Resource monitor and performance monitor are completely different tools. And Perfmon requires to add every process you need to monitor explicitly. It's impossible to monitor all running processes automatically. – user626528 Jun 20 '13 at 02:45
@user70010 You are right, I pointed to the exe I meant, I linked to the article that referenced what I meant, but I goofed on the name. Corrected now, thanks. – Austin T French Jun 20 '13 at 03:05
1

This will only collect data for processes that ran when setting up Performance Monitor logging. It will not show CPU usage for processes created after logging started. – Werner Henze Jun 20 '13 at 08:03

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '19 at 13:35

The tool to use is Process Monitor:

Start Process Monitor
Set a filter if required, otherwise uncheck all defaults and click OK to trace all
Enter menu Options > Profiling Events
Click "Generate thread prof‌iling events", choose the frequency, and click OK
To see the collected historical data at any time, enter menu Tools > Process Activity Summary...
Sort the list as required; double-click any one process to see its history.

Be prepared for a very large log file.

For a nice description of the above with screenshots see this answer.

was · Answer 3 · 2021-02-07T11:06:09.467

1

For Win10 universal apps (not Chrome/Edge for now..), Task Manager nowadays got [App history] tab with CPU time that seems not just simple delta with start time:

edited Feb 07 '21 at 11:06

answered Feb 07 '21 at 05:41

was

121
3

History of CPU usage for all processes

3 Answers3

Linked