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When it comes to viewing network statistics,
there are a number of utilities that you can use, including the
Networking tab in Windows Task Manager. Many administrators
overlook this tool because the default display doesn’t provide much
valuable information, and administrators often don’t realize that
they can alter the display to get more specific details.

By default, the Networking tab’s History graph
only displays the total number of bytes sent and received on the
connection. The only real meaningful statistic in the table is the
network utilization percentage. However, you can add two more
counters to the graph and a host of valuable statistics to the
table. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click the Taskbar and select Task
    Manager.
  2. Select the Networking tab.
  3. To add more detailed information to the
    history graph, go to View and open Network Adapter History. Then,
    enable the Bytes Sent and Bytes Received options.
  4. To add more detailed statistics to the table,
    go to View and click Select Columns. In the Select Columns dialog
    box, you can add or remove any of the 25 available statistics by
    selecting the adjacent check box and clicking OK.

For more information on these features, see the
Networking Overview section of Task Manager’s Help system.