Question

I call this tool RELI because when you type these four letters in the Windows search box on the taskbar, there is usually nothing else to choose from besides this one, the Reliability History/Monitor. RELI traces its roots all the way back to Windows Vista. It allows you to see the stability of a machine in a timeline. When you start typing it in the Start menu, you'll notice the name of the tool displays as Reliability History. Once you open the tool, it renames itself to Reliability Monitor. (Thank you, Microsoft.)

Reliability Monitor will build a graph for you of important events, application and Windows failures, and updates and other information that might be important. Figure 2.1 shows the graph that gets generated from application, Windows, and miscellaneous failures. In Lab 2.1 , you'll use RELI.

Figure 2.1 : Reliability Monitor graph

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LAB 2.1: RELI

1. To open this tool, open the Start menu and begin typing reli .
2. When you see the blue flag icon next to Reliability History in your Start menu, press the Enter key. Wait while it builds your graphic timeline.
3. Above the graphic in the upper left, notice you can shift your timeline view from Days to Weeks.
   • The first three lines of the graph indicated on the right side are the application, Windows, and miscellaneous failures this system has experienced. These can include when a program stopped working or when Windows did not properly shut down. It is a fantastic indicator of a Blue/Black Screen of Death (BSOD). This will be displayed as a red circle with a white X inside.
   • Under the failures, the yellow triangles with an exclamation point inside indicate a warning. These triangles are called splats. They could indicate whether the software did not update properly or errored but did not fail completely.
   • The blue circles across the bottom are informational. They will inform you if software updates were successful or drivers were installed correctly.
4. In the lower‐left corner of the Reliability Monitor screen, click the Save Reliability History link to save this timeline as an XML file. This file can be exported and analyzed by other reporting applications.
5. Click the View All Problem Reports link in the lower‐right corner next to the Save Reliability History link. This will open a new page that includes all the problems this device has experienced and can be reported directly to Microsoft. When there is a solution, it will appear in Security And Maintenance.

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