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# 7 Windows performance counters

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#### Overview

You can effectively monitor Windows performance counters using the
*perf\_counter\[\]* key.

For example:

    perf_counter["\Processor(0)\Interrupts/sec"]

or

    perf_counter["\Processor(0)\Interrupts/sec", 10]

For more information on using this key or its English-only equivalent
`perf_counter_en`, see [Windows-specific item
keys](/manual/config/items/itemtypes/zabbix_agent/win_keys).

In order to get a full list of performance counters available for
monitoring, you may run:

    typeperf -qx

Starting with Zabbix 5.0.1, you may also use low-level discovery to
discover multiple [object
instances](/manual/discovery/low_level_discovery/windows_perf_instances)
of Windows performance counters and automate the creation of
perf\_counter items for multiple instance objects.

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#### Numeric representation

Windows maintains numeric representations (indexes) for object and
performance counter names. Zabbix supports these numeric representations
as parameters to the `perf_counter`, `perf_counter_en` item keys and in
`PerfCounter`, `PerfCounterEn` configuration parameters.

However, it's not recommended to use them unless you can guarantee your
numeric indexes map to correct strings on specific hosts. If you need to
create portable items that work across different hosts with various
localized Windows versions, you can use the `perf_counter_en` key or
`PerfCounterEn` configuration parameter which allow to use English names
regardless of system locale.

To find out the numeric equivalents, run **regedit**, then find
*HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows
NT\\CurrentVersion\\Perflib\\009*.

The registry entry contains information like this:

    1
    1847
    2
    System
    4
    Memory
    6
    % Processor Time
    10
    File Read Operations/sec
    12
    File Write Operations/sec
    14
    File Control Operations/sec
    16
    File Read Bytes/sec
    18
    File Write Bytes/sec
    ....

Here you can find the corresponding numbers for each string part of the
performance counter, like in '\\System\\% Processor Time':

    System → 2
    % Processor Time → 6

Then you can use these numbers to represent the path in numbers:

    \2\6

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#### Performance counter parameters

You can deploy some PerfCounter parameters for the monitoring of Windows
performance counters.

For example, you can add these to the Zabbix agent configuration file:

       PerfCounter=UserPerfCounter1,"\Memory\Page Reads/sec",30
       or
       PerfCounter=UserPerfCounter2,"\4\24",30

With such parameters in place, you can then simply use
*UserPerfCounter1* or *UserPerfCounter2* as the keys for creating the
respective items.

Remember to restart Zabbix agent after making changes to the
configuration file.

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