Vista Tutorial - System Health Report

**Brink**

How to Generate a System Health Report in Vista

Information

The System Health Report helps track down any errors that may occur within your software or hardware and generates a report that tells you exactly what the problems are. When the report is generated, you will see a list of: the status of any critical components on the computer, whether or not the problem has been detected, and any possible solutions you can try. This can be a very useful tool for troubleshooting problems and for a great source of information on your system.

NOTE

The System Health Report seems to not always properly detect, recognise, or report on anti-spy, anti-virus, anti-malware software that is installed on your system.

WARNING

You will need to do this from within an administrator account or provide the administrator password in the UAC prompt for it to work.

Tip

If you get this error message below, then check the Performance Logs & Alerts Service and make sure it is set to Manual.

RELATED LINKS:

EXAMPLE: System Health Report
NOTE: Each drop down arrow on the right hand side will open the line for more information.

Here's How:

1. Open the Control Panel. (Classic View)

2. Click on the Click to Play button in the video below.

That's it,
Shawn

**njnitehawk** · 05-21-2008

i got this error when i tried to run this program:
unknown interface

**Brink** · 05-21-2008

Hi Njnitehawk,

At what point do you get this error message? Is there more to the error message?

Shawn

**njnitehawk** · 05-23-2008

no it was exactly at the time i tried to run the program

never got started

njnitehawk

**Brink** · 05-23-2008

njnitehawk,

I must admit that I'm stumped. You might try to see if running a sfc /scannow command can find and fix any bad system files that may be the cause.

System Files - SFC Command

In addition, you might also post this question in the General Discussion forum and Vista performance & maintenance newsgroup to see what you may get for a possible solution.

Shawn

**njnitehawk** · 05-23-2008

brink

you have always gave good advice

thank you

**Brink** · 05-23-2008

Your welcome njnitehawk.

I hope you get a solution soon.

Shanw

bigchad · 08-10-2008

"An error occured while attempting to generate a report. the wait for the report generation too to finish has timed out"

how do i solve this?

**Brink** · 08-10-2008

Hi Bigchad, and welcome to Vista Forums. I found this link that you might try for this error.

Error When Generating System Health Report - Windows Vista Performance & Maintenance

Hope this helps,
Shawn

protiusmime · 08-26-2008

nitehawk, et al: I had same issue and found a resolve:

For whatever reason, the Generate System Health Report inside the Advanced Tools fails to initiate the HTML report. When the collect system info runs for the 60 seconds, the data is actually generated and stored in the Performance Monitor tree, BUT is not able to be displayed as a REPORT. So... to make this work you must first set up a USER DEFINED DATA COLLECTION. You do this inside the Reliability and Performance module.
Expand the Data Collection Sets Folder; Right click on User Defined. A dialogue will open asking you to give your collection a NAME. You have a choice as to which collection set you want to set up... a Basic, Diagnostic, or Performance collection set. The Basic is just that... very basic. The Diag and Perf are almost the same. Choose one and give it a name.

At this point a User Defined Data Collection Set is made and you should save it at this time. To "Start" collecting data, just right click the name of the collection set you created under User Defined and then click on "START". You will notice the icon changes to an arrow inside the icon.
The default run time for the collection is 10 minutes. You can set this to whatever you want back under the setup routine (right click collection name), however, realize that anything over 1 minute will only collect and display the graphic display. The typical html report can only be displayed for the 1 minute period.
When the data collection starts, you will notice that down below in the tree, under REPORTS, your collection set name will appear as a folder. Inside the folder is the year/month/date and a serial # of the report. It may create two with the same name. The first is the graphical display which you can see if you choose monitor. The second is the actual HTML page showing all the data as what we all would have expected to see.
I hope you have no trouble setting up a user defined collection set. It works very well and yields what I think you are looking for.

05-21-2008
njnitehawk Member Join Date: May 2008 vista 64-bit ulimate sp1 112 posts	Re: System Health Report i got this error when i tried to run this program: unknown interface
My System Specs

05-21-2008
Brink Administrator Join Date: Apr 2007 Vista x64 Ultimate SP2, Windows 7 (7600) x64 25,806 posts	Re: System Health Report Hi Njnitehawk, At what point do you get this error message? Is there more to the error message? Shawn
My System Specs

05-23-2008
njnitehawk Member Join Date: May 2008 vista 64-bit ulimate sp1 112 posts	Re: System Health Report no it was exactly at the time i tried to run the program never got started njnitehawk
My System Specs

05-23-2008
Brink Administrator Join Date: Apr 2007 Vista x64 Ultimate SP2, Windows 7 (7600) x64 25,806 posts	Re: System Health Report njnitehawk, I must admit that I'm stumped. You might try to see if running a sfc /scannow command can find and fix any bad system files that may be the cause. System Files - SFC Command In addition, you might also post this question in the General Discussion forum and Vista performance & maintenance newsgroup to see what you may get for a possible solution. Shawn
My System Specs

05-23-2008
njnitehawk Member Join Date: May 2008 vista 64-bit ulimate sp1 112 posts	Re: System Health Report brink you have always gave good advice thank you
My System Specs

05-23-2008
Brink Administrator Join Date: Apr 2007 Vista x64 Ultimate SP2, Windows 7 (7600) x64 25,806 posts	Re: System Health Report Your welcome njnitehawk. I hope you get a solution soon. Shanw
My System Specs

08-10-2008
bigchad Newbie Join Date: Aug 2008 Vista Home Premium 32bit 1 posts	Re: System Health Report "An error occured while attempting to generate a report. the wait for the report generation too to finish has timed out" how do i solve this?
My System Specs

08-10-2008
Brink Administrator Join Date: Apr 2007 Vista x64 Ultimate SP2, Windows 7 (7600) x64 25,806 posts	Re: System Health Report Hi Bigchad, and welcome to Vista Forums. I found this link that you might try for this error. Error When Generating System Health Report - Windows Vista Performance & Maintenance Hope this helps, Shawn
My System Specs

08-26-2008
protiusmime Newbie Join Date: Aug 2008 Vista 32 1 posts	Re: System Health Report nitehawk, et al: I had same issue and found a resolve: For whatever reason, the Generate System Health Report inside the Advanced Tools fails to initiate the HTML report. When the collect system info runs for the 60 seconds, the data is actually generated and stored in the Performance Monitor tree, BUT is not able to be displayed as a REPORT. So... to make this work you must first set up a USER DEFINED DATA COLLECTION. You do this inside the Reliability and Performance module. Expand the Data Collection Sets Folder; Right click on User Defined. A dialogue will open asking you to give your collection a NAME. You have a choice as to which collection set you want to set up... a Basic, Diagnostic, or Performance collection set. The Basic is just that... very basic. The Diag and Perf are almost the same. Choose one and give it a name. At this point a User Defined Data Collection Set is made and you should save it at this time. To "Start" collecting data, just right click the name of the collection set you created under User Defined and then click on "START". You will notice the icon changes to an arrow inside the icon. The default run time for the collection is 10 minutes. You can set this to whatever you want back under the setup routine (right click collection name), however, realize that anything over 1 minute will only collect and display the graphic display. The typical html report can only be displayed for the 1 minute period. When the data collection starts, you will notice that down below in the tree, under REPORTS, your collection set name will appear as a folder. Inside the folder is the year/month/date and a serial # of the report. It may create two with the same name. The first is the graphical display which you can see if you choose monitor. The second is the actual HTML page showing all the data as what we all would have expected to see. I hope you have no trouble setting up a user defined collection set. It works very well and yields what I think you are looking for. Last edited by protiusmime; 09-01-2008 at 01:04 AM..
My System Specs

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