Despite Microsoft's best efforts, Windows 10 isn't immune to crashes and freezes. Often, it's not even the result of Windows itself, but a program or driver you have installed. Finding what exactly caused the crash or freeze can be difficult, however, which is where the Windows 10 Reliability Monitor comes in.
What is the Reliability and Performance Monitor?
Before we show you how to view your reliability history, it's useful to know what the tool does and doesn't do and how it displays information. Often, there's some confusion between two similarly sounding Windows tools: Reliability Monitor and Performance Monitor.
The difference between the two tools is quite self-explanatory – Performance Monitor shows you how your hardware is performing, both currently and over time. Reliability instead focuses on software crashes and freezes, which can be related to hardware issues but often aren't.
By looking at your system's stability across its lifetime, Windows 10 is able to assign your PC a System Stability Index rating on any given day. A value of 1 would indicate a very unstable system, while 10 would indicate a system that's basically perfect. This number is based on the number of failures detected over a rolling historical period, with recent failures weighted more heavily.
When should I be concerned about my computer reliability
Reliability History maintains these records for up to a year. Having long-term information helps you determine if your general computer reliability is worsening over time and therefore part of a larger issue that needs to be addressed.
However, a higher level of system instability isn't always a cause for concern. Some applications just have heavy workloads and are therefore more prone to crashes. If you have recently started creating 3D renders or editing photos and videos, for example, you can expect to see an uptick in crashes and freezes.
An extended lower reliability score is mainly cause for concern if you're seeing crashes across an assortment of different applications for no apparent reason. However, Reliability Monitor can also help you tell if a specific application has been crashing more frequently and therefore needs to be re-installed or re-configured.
With all that said, let's jump into how you can view Reliability History in Windows 10:
How to View Reliability History in Windows 10
You can access Reliability History at any point through the legacy Control Panel application. This is generally quite long-winded, but you'll find a technique to speed up the process later in the tutorial.
Anyway, here's how you can access your Reliability History through the Control Panel:
- Open Control Panel
Press Start and then type “Control Panel”. Click the top result.
- Search for “Security and Maintenance” and click the top result
- Click “View reliability history”
You'll find the link in the “Maintenance” section, under “Report problems”.
- Wait for your report to generate
Reliability Monitor will take a little while to generate your report – it has to sift through a lot of data. The time this takes will depend on your system specs and how much history there is. Generally, though, it shouldn't be more than a minute or so.
- Sort your computer reliability by Days
Above the chart, you can click the “Days” heading to view your system's reliability score in daily increments.
An ? icon indicates an error, an ⚠ a failure, and an that a successful software install or uninstall has occurred. The column they're in indicates when the problem occurred and the row the type of failure.
- Sort your Computer Reliability by Weeks
If you want to see a reliability history across a longer period, click “Weeks” next to “View by:”.
An ? icon indicates an error, an ⚠ a failure, and an that a successful software installation or uninstallation has occurred. The column they're in indicates when the problem occurred and the row the type of failure.
- View the technical details of your crashes and errors
To get more detail about a specific crash, simply click on its day (or week) in the graph and click “View technical details” in the bottom panel next to the date and time of occurrence.
- Read the error description
The details of the event will allow you to provide more detail to a professional or give you more data for your Windows troubleshooting process.
- View all of your problem reports
The “View all problem reports” button returns a list of all the problem reports that can be reported to Microsoft.
- Review your list of problem reports
Windows 10 Reliability Monitor will display the interface below
- Automatically check for solutions to your problems
One of the most powerful features of Reliability Monitor is its ability to automatically check for solutions to all of your problems. You can start this process by pressing the “Check for solutions to all problems…” button at the very bottom of your Reliability Monitor window.
- Wait for the Windows troubleshooting tool to look for solutions
- Test the solutions or click “Close”
How to Use Reliability Monitor via Shortcut
As you may have noticed, typing “Relaibility Monitor” in your search bar doesn't return any results, and going through the Control Panel is time-consuming.
To remedy this, we can manually create a shortcut to place on our desktop. We can then view our reliability history at any time by double-clicking the shortcut or searching for the shortcut in our search bar. Here's how:
- Create a new shortcut
Right-click your desktop and select “New > Shortcut”.
- Point your shortcut to Windows 10 Resource Monitor
In the field under “Type the location of the item:”, type
perfmon.exe /rel
. Click “Next” to continue. - Give the shortcut a name
Give the shortcut a memorable name. For us, “Reliability Monitor” makes the most sense. Click “Finish”.
- Open your shortcut properties
Right-click your shortcut and click “Properties”.
- Click “Change icon”
By default, it'll have the performance monitor icon, which could get confusing!
- Paste the reliability monitor shortcut location in the “Browse” box
The location you want is
%SystemRoot%\system32\werconcpl.dll
. Press Enter to search. - Select the flag icon and press “OK”
- Click “OK” in the properties window
Your new shortcut icon should apply instantly.
How to Clear Reliability History in Windows 10
So, what if you recently fixed a reliability issue and you want to start your data gathering from scratch? Well, you can quickly clear all of the problem reports with just a few clicks. Here's how:
- Open Control Panel
Press Start and then type “Control Panel”. Click the top result.
- Search for “Security and Maintenance in the Control Panel
Click the top search result, which should, unsurprisingly, be “Security and Maintenance”.
- View your Reliability History
In the “Security and Maintenance” window, expand the “Maintenance” section and click “View reliability history”.
- Press “View all problem reports”
The link should be located at the very bottom of your Reliability Monitor window, on the left-hand side.
- Click “Clear all problem reports”
- Press “Clear all”
Do make sure you read the warning text fully before you agree to anything so you understand the downsides.
That brings this Windows 10 Reliability Monitor tutorial to an end, but there's still more you can learn. Why not learn how to monitor and check your CPU temperature or fix those pesky update errors you spotted in Reliability Monitor?
Last Updated on February 14, 2022 7:45 pm CET