Sometimes the following message is displayed in the “.Log” file:

04/14/08-13:44:04 – Event ID: 2900, Category: Perf Text, Severity: Error Insufficient data in performance name table

Concerning the message “Insufficient data in performance name table” refers to the file perfc009.dat that resides in the <Windows>\system32 folder. This file contains the names of all installed objects and counters. The name table can become corrupted during installation of new or modified Counter definitions using the lodctr utility.  Even though Microsoft enhanced the procedure to rebuild a  damaged perfc009.dat file in Windows Server 2003 ( KB 300956)  and these problems typically impact all consumers of performance counters, the Performance Sentry Collection Service was modified to recover from severe damage to the perfc009.dat that it finds during Discovery and continue processing.

As an alternative, to the Microsoft KnowledgeBase entry, we sometimes suggest to our customers that they simply copy a Perfc009.dat file from a similarly configured server (after renaming the existing corrupt Perfc009.dat file – for backup or supporting documentation for the error).You can verify the fix by starting Perfmon (Performance Monitor) and looking at the performance counters.

Then stop and restart the Performance Sentry Collection Service so that service will re-initialize using the new, or repaired, file.

For additional repaired options you can read Microsoft’s knowledge base article: KB 300956