Where to start...

Overview of Performance Monitoring
Sample chapter from the Windows 2000 Resource Kit - Monitoring performance is a necessary part of preventive maintenance for your computer system. Through monitoring, you obtain performance data that is useful in diagnosing system problems and in planning for the growth in demand for system resources. Source: Microsoft TechNet

Windows 2000 Performance Tools
Explore Win2K's enhanced performance tools and walk through some examples that show you how to capitalize on these new features. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (April 1, 2000)

Windows 2000 Performance Tuning
This white paper provides information on how to tune the Microsoft© Windows? 2000 operating system to achieve optimal performance. It also provides useful information on how to test the performance capabilities of Windows 2000; presents data generated using various IBM Netfinity servers and industry benchmarks that show the performance capabilities of Window 2000 when running in an optimized environment; and, finally, shows how to use the integrated performance monitoring tools in Windows 2000 to eliminate potential performance bottlenecks. Source: Microsoft TechNet CD Online (March 2000)

Windows 2000 Server Performance Monitoring Part 1
Tutorial by Brien Posey discusses why monitoring is important, and how to setup System Monitor. Part 2 discusses performance counters and third party monitoring tools. Source: 8Wire

Creating Performance Alerts in Windows 2000
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 244640 - You can create alerts in Windows 2000 using the Sysmon tool. 

Configuring Page Files for Optimization and Recovery
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 197379 - Windows NT Server and Windows 2000, by default, will place the pagefile on the boot partition where the operating system is installed. To determine the size of the pagefile multiply the amount of physical RAM by 1.5 to a maximum of 4095MB. 

Differences Between "Bytes Sent/Sec" and "Bytes Received/Sec" Counters
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 269738 - When you measure the performance of the computers in your environment, you might find that the "Bytes Sent/sec" counter for the Network Interface object is off by a magnitude of 8 to 10 from the "Bytes Received/sec" counter when the same amount of data is exchanged in both directions 

Enabling Non-Admin Users to Remotely Monitor with PERFMON NEW!
When trying to run Performance Monitor in Windows NT 4.0 as a regular user, you receive a "Computer name not found" error message. Also, when you run System Monitor in Windows 2000, you receive the following error message: Unable to connect to machine. When you log on as the Administrator or to another account with administrative privileges, you can monitor with no problems using Performance/System Monitor 

High CPU Usage When Computer Is Running on Battery
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 257278 - When a computer is running on battery power, it may experience a period of high processor utilization. Processor usage may reach 100 percent.

HOW TO: Add Error Logging for Low Disk Space in System Monitor
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 299921 - This step-by-step document describes how to add error logging for low disk space in System Monitor. 

How to Clear the Windows NT Paging File at Shutdown
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 182086 This article documents the method for clearing the Windows NT paging file (Pagefile.sys) during the shutdown process, so that no unsecured data is contained in the paging file when the shutdown process is complete. 

HOW TO: Create and Configure Performance Monitor Trace Logs
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 302552 - This step-by-step article describes how to create and configure Trace logs. 

HOW TO: Create and Configure Performance Monitor Alerts
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 302558 - This step-by-step article describes how to create and configure Trace alerts. 

HOW TO: Create and Configure System Monitor Counter Logs in Windows 2000 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 302509 - This step-by-step instruction guide describes how to create and configure System Monitor counter logs. 

How to Create a Log Using System Monitor in Windows 2000 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 248345 - This article describes how to create log files using System Monitor in Windows 2000. 

How to create a Performance Monitor Log for NT Troubleshooting
Microsoft KB Article Q150934 This article explains how to create a Performance Monitor log so that engineers can use it to troubleshoot performance problems on a computer running Windows NT.

How to Create Sequentially-Numbered Performance Logs with System Monitor
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 253264 - You can use System Monitor to create sequential performance logs of a specific size. This prevents logs from becoming too large and unmanageable and lets users organize the logs by number. 

HOW TO: Manage Performance Monitor Counters
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 302521 - This step-by-step article describes how to manage Performance Monitor counters. 

How to Manually Enable/Disable Disk Write Caching
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 259716 - Some third-party programs require disk write caching to be enabled or disabled. In addition, enabling disk write caching may increase operating system performance. This article describes how to enable or disable disk write caching. (updated 4/20/2000)

How to Stop the NTExecutive from Paging to Disk
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 184419 - This article describes how to prevent pageable drivers and system code in the Windows NT Executive from being paged out to disk. Although this decreases the response time in systems with extremely large amounts of physical memory (RAM), it 

HOW TO: View a System Monitor Log 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 243423 - This article describes how to view a system monitor or performance monitor log. 

Increasing the Desktop Application Heap
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 126962 When you run a large number of Windows-based programs, "Out Of Memory" error messages appear when you attempt to start new programs or try to use programs that are already running, even though you still have plenty of physical and pagefile. 

Mapping Events in NTFRS Service Logs to Threads in Performance Monitor 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 224554 - The File Replication service (FRS) is a multi-threaded, multi-master replication engine that replaces the LMREPL (LAN Manager Replication) service in Microsoft Windows NT versions 3.x and 4.0. Windows 2000 domain controllers and servers use FRS to replicate system policies and login scripts for Windows 2000 and down-level clients. FRS can also replicate content between Windows 2000 servers hosting the same fault-tolerant Distributed File System (DFS) roots or child node replicas. FRS creates detailed service logs in the %SystemRoot%\Debug folder that can be useful when troubleshooting or optimizing the NTFRS service. This article describes how to match FRS threads in the service logs to those in Performance Monitor

Measuring and Managing Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Application Performance
Learn how to measure and manage your NT Workstation 4.0 performance, and discover useful tools that can help you with performance problems. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (April 2000)

Optimizing NTFS
Assess and enhance the performance of your NTFS volumes. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (March 1999).

PagedPoolSize and NonPagedPoolSize Values in Windows NT
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 126402 - Windows NT calculates NonPagedPoolSize and PagedPoolSize based on the amount of physical memory present in the computer at boot time. This article describes the algorithms used to calculate these values on an x86- based computer. 

Performance Enhancements for Network Load Balancing
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 255014 - Network Load Balancing, in some circumstances, may not manage client connections efficiently and may cause an unnecessary drain on system resources. 

Performance Degradation When Heap Is Fragmented
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 257357 - An application that frequently allocates or frees memory (directly or indirectly) may experience serious performance degradation when the heap is fragmented. 

Performance Gallery
Simplify network wide performance monitoring and routine reporting. Source: Windows & .NET Magazine (April 2000)

Server Service Configuration and Tuning
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 128167 Although the Windows NT Server service is self-tuning, it can be also be configured manually through Control Panel Service. Normally, the server configuration parameters are auto-configured (calculated and set) each time you boot Windows

Using Performance Monitor To Identify A Pool Leak
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 130926 A memory leak occurs when a memory pool allocates some of its memory to a process and the process does not return the memory. When this happens repeatedly, the memory pool is depleted.

Event ID 2003 Warning Message Logged When Loading Performance Counters
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 267831 - After you install Windows 2000 on a drive that uses the FAT or FAT32 file system (that was formatted during the installation process) and install Internet Information Services (IIS) in the same Setup process, event ID 2003 warning messages

High CPU Usage Occurs When There Are a Very Large Number of Connections on Port 445
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 320751 - When a Windows 2000 Server-based computer (and to a lesser extent, a Windows 2000 Professional-based computer) receives connection requests on port 445, it allocates memory and a small degree of increased CPU usage to serve these connections.

Network Segment Object Has Been Removed from System Monitor 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 253790 - In Windows 2000, installing Network Monitor does not add the Network Segment object in System Monitor as in Microsoft Windows NT. 

More Performance Degradation Than Expected When You Perform a Debug Operation 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 312614 - When you perform a debug operation on a domain controller, you may experience a greater degree of performance degradation than you expect. 

Performance Alerts Do Not Start After a Remote Alert Fails in Windows 2000 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 323735 - You may experience a problem when you are using Performance Logs and Alerts in Computer Management to monitor alerts. If a remote alert does not start because the computer is unavailable, local alerts may no longer start, and you may receive the folowing error message: The log or alert name log or alert has not started. Refresh the log or alert list to view current status, or see the application event log for any errors

Perfmon.exe May Display an Incorrect Value for Disk % Idle Time 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 307899 - Perfmon.exe may display an incorrect value for the Disk % Idle Time counter. Programs that rely on this counter may also report incorrect values. 

Performance Monitor Counters Are Not Displayed Correctly
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 264344 - When adding counters in Performance Monitor, the performance objects are incorrectly displayed. The objects are displayed as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes 

Performance Monitor Does Not Show All Counters in a Log File on a Different Computer
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 275857 - After you use Performance Monitor and log multiple performance counters on a computer, Performance Monitor does not display all the counters if you view the log file on a different computer. 

Performance Alerts Do Not Start After a Remote Alert Fails in Windows 2000 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 323735 - You may experience a problem when you are using Performance Logs and Alerts in Computer Management to monitor alerts. If a remote alert does not start because the computer is unavailable, local alerts may no longer start, and you may receive the following error message: The log or alert name log or alert has not started. Refresh the log or alert list to view current status, or see the application event log for any errors

Programs Start Slowly if Your Home Folder Connection Is Very Slow in Windows 2000 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 306850 - When you start a program, the program may run very slowly. This symptom may occur if the following conditions exist: You start a program that does not have a "Start in" property OR Your home folder is mapped to a network share to which you have a very slow network connection.

Slow Network Performance Occurs If You Copy Files to a Windows 2000 Domain Controller
If you copy files from a Windows 2000-based or a Microsoft Windows XP-based client computer to a network share on a Windows 2000-based domain controller, network performance is slower than if you copy the same files to a Windows 2000-based member server. You may notice this problem if you copy many small files; however, you may not notice this problem if you copy a few large files. This problem only occurs if you either use Microsoft Windows Explorer to copy the files or if a Windows Explorer window is open and connected to the target server. However, if you use Xcopy.exe to copy the files and all of the Windows Explorer windows are closed, you do not experience this problem. 

Slow Performance Accessing Local Drives with Share Name 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 278678 - If you share folders on a local computer and then access these local file systems by using their share names, transferring files may be much slower than when you use local drive and path names. 

Slow Performance Writing to Disk and Temporary Files Stay Open 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 262326 - When messages write to the %TEMP% folder and the process creates files that have hexadecimal numbers in their file names, the hard disk's input and output rate increases, causing slow performance over time. The temporary flag also keeps the temporary open. This behavior occurs when Exchange 2000 Server runs on Windows 2000 Server.

Smlogsvc.exe Does Not Release Resources When You Are Using Performance Monitor Alerts 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 273653 - When you are using the System Monitor "Alert" feature to call a batch (.bat) or .cmd file, the available memory may be slowly depleted, total handles may climb steadily, and CPU utilization may become high. This may appear to be a memory or handle leak 

Some Performance Monitor Log Instances Are Not Displayed in System Monitor
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 264099 - When you use Chart view in Performance Monitor to examine a Performance Monitor log in Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, you can adjust the Time window to view processes that start after the log is started. Without this adjustment, which starts after the first data point is logged, some data values that you see in the log file are not displayed in Chart view. 

System Monitor Problems When You Are Working with Large Log Files 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 253147 - While you are adding counters after you open a large log file in System Monitor, any of the following problems can occur: 

The Physical Disk Is Displayed with the Drive Letter Enumerated in System Monitor 
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: 267842 - In Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and earlier, logical disk and physical disk counters are displayed as separate items in Performance Monitor whereas in Windows 2000, these objects are displayed as merged objects in System Monitor.