Turning on live per-app network figures in Pulse by Zaweba

Out of the box, the network figures for each app in Pulse by Zaweba come from Windows' own data-usage records, which run about a minute behind. That's fine for working out what used your data today, but not for watching a download or an upload as it happens. One button in Settings changes that.

What the button does

Go to Settings and find the Live network per app section. It has an Allow live per-app network button. Pressing it adds your Windows account to a built-in Windows group called Performance Log Users. This is done once. Windows asks for administrator approval when it happens, since changing group membership is an administrator's job.

After that, sign out of Windows and sign back in. Group membership is only picked up at sign-in, so until you do, nothing changes.

Once you're back, Pulse can count each app's TCP and UDP traffic as it happens using Windows event tracing. And it does so while still running as a normal user. The administrator approval was only needed to join the group, not to run Pulse.

Why it works this way

Windows only lets administrators and members of Performance Log Users start the event trace that counts traffic per process. Pulse is built to run as a normal user all the time, so instead of asking for administrator rights every time it starts, it asks once to put you in the group that is allowed to do this one thing. That keeps the everyday program unprivileged.

If you'd rather not change any group, you don't have to. Pulse works perfectly well without it, and the per-app column shows today's data from Windows' records instead.

Checking that it's on

The text in that Settings section tells you where you stand. It says whether live counting is on, or whether Pulse has the right but could not start the trace. That second message is useful: it tells you the group membership worked, so the problem lies elsewhere, rather than leaving you wondering whether you pressed the button properly.

On the Live page, a note bar above the table also says which mode is active, so you always know whether you're looking at live traffic or the slower records.

What you can do with it

With live counting on, the Network down and Network up columns in the Live table move second by second. Sort by either to see which app is pulling data down right now, or which one is sending a lot up. That makes it easy to catch a cloud sync tool that has started uploading a whole folder, or to check that a big download really is the thing using your connection.

It also pairs well with the Network graph at the top of the page, which shows down and up for the whole PC with arrows and rates. When the graph jumps, sort the table and the cause is usually at the top.

Things to keep in mind

Remember to sign out and in. It's the step people miss, and nothing changes without it.

The live columns show what's happening now. For totals over the day or the week, the History page's top bandwidth users list is the place to look, and it works whether or not live counting is on, because Pulse also stores Windows' hourly per-app data-usage records.

And if you share the PC, remember the change applies to your Windows account only. Another person signing in to their own account would need to allow it for themselves.