Server Performance Advisor ( Windows )

As I mentioned earlier, you can download Server Performance Advisor for free from the Microsoft Web site. The download URL is: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61a41d78-e4aa-47b9-901b-cf85da075a73&displaylang=en The download consists of a 4 MB Windows Installer file named SPA.MSI.

To install the Server Performance Advisor, create an empty folder on your server and download the SPA.MSI file into it. When the download completes, double click on the SPA.MSI file and Windows will ask you whether you’d like to open the file, or save it to your computer. Click the Open button and the Windows Installer will launch the Server Performance Advisor Setup Wizard. Click Next to bypass the wizard’s Welcome screen and you will see a screen asking you to accept the end user license agreement. Accept the license agreement, click Next and you will be prompted for the installation path. Verify that the installation path is OK and choose whether or not you want the Server Performance Advisor to be available to other administrators who log directly on to the server, and click Next. You will now be prompted to enter a location for the data storage folder. The data storage folder is used as a storage point for the performance data that the utility collects. You can use any folder that you want, but the volume containing the folder must have at least 150 MB of free space.

Click Next and you will be prompted for the path to the report folder. This folder will contain analytical reports based on the performance data that has been collected. The reports usually don’t take up very much space, so there are no special considerations for the Reports folder.

Click Next twice and the wizard will begin installing all of the necessary files. When the file copy process complete, click the Finish button to close the Wizard.