Invalid Counters
For the Performance Check we query the Windows Performance Counters and the Invalid Counters message may be displayed if the Agent service does not have sufficient permissions to query the counters, where the counters are not enabled on the device or the counters have become corrupt requiring a rebuild.
Agent service account permissions
Where the Agent service account does not have sufficient permissions to query the Windows Performance Counters this may result in an Invalid Counters message.
To resolve this issue the Agent service may be changed to one that has sufficient privileges and this is covered in the section How to change the Advanced Monitoring Agent service logon account
If this is not possible, for example due to security reasons, the account the Agent uses may be added to the built-in groups Performance Log Users and Performance Monitor Users to provide sufficient permissions to retrieve the performance monitoring counters.
Enable the Windows Performance Counters
The Windows Performance Counters must be enabled to allow the Agent to retrieve the relevant information and to check whether this is the case please load the Windows Performance Monitor Utility via Start/Run/perfmon.
By default the following three counters should be displayed in the System Monitor main window:
Object: Memory Counter: Pages/sec
Object: PhysicalDisk Counter: Avg. Disk Queue Length Instance: _Total
Object: Processor Counter: %Processor Time Instance: _Total
To Add a counter either right-click the main window System Monitor details pane and click Add Counters or click the button on the toolbar.
Once these changes have taken place it may be necessary to log back into the Agent and remove then reselect the required Performance Checks.
Corrupt Windows Performance Counters
When investigating the counters, via the Windows Performance Monitor Utility (Start/Run/perfmon), where the counters are enabled but are missing, displaying values indicative of strange behavior or do not contain any counter data it may be necessary to rebuild the performance counter library values.
The performance counter library may be manually rebuilt by editing the registry or via LODCTR which updates Performance Monitor counter names and explain text for an extensible counter.
Rebuilding the performance counter library is discussed in the Microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300956/en-us
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