Understanding Windows Performance Collector Tag Hierarchy

The Windows Performance Collector provides the ability to browse performance tags hierarchically. This hierarchy is different from the hierarchy of the Windows Performance Monitor.

The Windows Performance Collector displays Objects, Instances, and Counters. When you click an Object, its Instances appear in a folder structure under the specific Object. The Objects are displayed as they are added. They are not displayed in an alphabetical order as they are created dynamically. The Counters are displayed on the right. If no counters exist for a particular Instance, they are not displayed.

The following figure provides an example of the hierarchy:

In the Windows Performance Collector, while you are collecting data, if any of the counters of any application or process stops running, the collector does not stop showing that particular instance but will continue running it with zero values for that particular Counter. It does not update these counters dynamically.