Knowledge Base

Enabling Non-Admin Users to Remotely Monitor with PERFMON

PSS ID Number: 158438

Article Last Modified on 9/23/2003

The information in this article applies to:

This article was previously published under Q158438
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SUMMARY

If you run Performance Monitor in Windows NT 4.0 when you are logged on as a regular user, you may receive a "Computer name not found" error message. Also, when you run System Monitor in Windows 2000, you may receive the following error message:
Unable to connect to machine
When you log on as the Administrator or to another account with administrative privileges, you can monitor with no problems using Performance/System Monitor.

However, it is possible for non-administrator users to remotely monitor Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 servers with Performance/System Monitor.

MORE INFORMATION

For a non-administrator user to remotely monitor a computer running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 with Performance/System Monitor, you must modify the target computer. To do so:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
  1. In Windows Explorer or File Manager, give the user at least READ access to the following files:

    %windir%\System32\PERFCxxx.DAT
    %windir%\system32\PERFHxxx.DAT

    where xxx is the basic language ID for the system, for example, 009 for English. These files may be missing or corrupted. If you suspect this, expand these files off of the installation CD.
  2. Start Registry Editor, and then give the user at least READ access to the following registry keys:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Perflib

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurePipeServers\Winreg

  3. Give the user at least READ access to the following key and allow Read permission to propagate down to the Services subkeys:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

  4. With Windows 2000, in addition to the access described above, the user must also have access granted by the following Group Policies:
    • Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment
      • Profile System Performance
      • Profile Single Process
  5. If the user is neither a power user or an administrator, additional permissions might be needed to access SysMonLog services. To grant full access to SysMonLog services, run the subinacl /service sysmonlog /grant=tester=f command, where tester is the user account.

Additional query words: prodnt perfc009.dat perfh009.dat

Keywords: kbhowto KB158438
Technology: kbwin2000AdvServ kbwin2000AdvServSearch kbwin2000Pro kbwin2000ProSearch kbwin2000Search kbwin2000Serv kbwin2000ServSearch kbWinAdvServSearch kbWinNT400search kbWinNTS400 kbWinNTS400search kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTSsearch kbWinNTW400 kbWinNTW400search kbWinNTWsearch


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