Once Quicklaunch has been up and running, the resource monitors should be sampling the machine for each monitor's status. You may find that even after Quicklaunch has been running for several minutes that the resource monitor icon still appears gray:


Hovering over the icon will display the status of each of the monitors. In some instances, the CPU monitor will continue to be in the initializing state even after the other monitors are reporting positive results:


Often this can be caused by a corrupt performance counter on the machine which prevents Quicklaunch from accurately reporting on the CPU's status.


The performance counters can be rebuilt by executing the following command from an elevated command prompt:

lodctr /R


This command may fail with an error code of 5 if the command prompt has not been elevated with administrator rights:


The command may also fail with an error code of 2 if the performance counter is hidden from the scope of the lodctr command.


The necessary performance counter can be made visible to the lodctr command by executing the following command:

attrib -a -h -r -s C:\Windows\System32\*.*


After executing the attrib command, executing the lodctr command again should result in a success message:


Once the performance counters have been rebuilt, the machine will need to be restarted for the counters to be loaded. 

Quicklaunch will then be able to monitor the CPU and report on its status appropriately:


For ease of use, you can download the attached batch file and run it as administrator to execute both commands.


Rebuilding the performance counters can also be performed via Quicklaunch with no need to run a batch file or use the command prompt. To do this in Quicklaunch, access its settings (you can access the settings by pressing Ctrl+Alt+S) and navigate to the System tab. From here, click the "Rebuild Performance Counters" link under Options:


You will be prompted to continue, as this process requires administrator rights:


After clicking Yes, the UAC prompt will be shown at which point you must be allow the process to run with admin rights.


Once the performance counters have been rebuilt, you will be prompted to restart your machine:


You can choose to not restart now, but the CPU monitor may not reflect the rebuilt performance counter information until the machine is restarted.