Error when starting Data Collector Sets

So if you're like me and went overzealous in locking down your 2008 servers, you may run into a nice error message when trying to start your Data Collector Sets in the Reliability and Performance Monitor:

When attempting to start the Data Collector Set the following system error occured:

The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or
because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

I finally figured out which service it was complaining about - "Performance Logs & Alerts". It was set to disabled which I believe occurred after I had locked it down with the Security and Configuration Wizard. Set this service to Manual and then your data collector sets will be able to run.



You'll also want to set Task Manager to Automatic if you want to be able to schedule your Data Collector sets to run on a schedule.