PdhBrowseCounters function (Windows)

PdhBrowseCounters function

PdhBrowseCounters function

Applies to: desktop apps only

Displays a Browse Counters dialog box that the user can use to select one or more counters that they want to add to the query.

To use handles to data sources, use the PdhBrowseCountersH function.

Syntax

PDH_STATUS PdhBrowseCounters(
  __in  PPDH_BROWSE_DLG_CONFIG pBrowseDlgData
);

Parameters

pBrowseDlgData [in]: A PDH_BROWSE_DLG_CONFIG structure that specifies the behavior of the dialog box.

Return value

If the function succeeds, it returns ERROR_SUCCESS.

If the function fails, the return value is a system error code or a PDH error code.

Remarks

Note that the dialog box can return PDH_DIALOG_CANCELLED if bSingleCounterPerDialog is FALSE and the user clicks the Close button, so your error handling would have to account for this.

For information on using this function, see Browsing Counters.

Examples

For an example, see Browsing Performance Counters.

Requirements

Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server
Header	Pdh.h
Library	Pdh.lib
DLL	Pdh.dll
Unicode and ANSI names	PdhBrowseCountersW (Unicode) and PdhBrowseCountersA (ANSI)

Regarding the last user's comments - you don't need elevation, you need to set this flag to false and it should return selections:
bSingleCounterPerAdd = FALSE

The bug makes it so a programmer can't force it to only allow one selection. It may work elevated, but that makes no sense.

Also, the flag 'bWildCardInstances' must ALWAYS be set to TRUE, otherwise it causes crashes in many cases, at least on Windows 7.

Other bugs on Vista+:
- You need to manually set the title, it no longer offers a default (NULL pointer).
- You can't set an initial performance counter to be highlighted. It is ignored.
- Sometimes the Instances won't show up on the bottom, depending on where you click on the top portion of the dialog box. This causes an invalid Counter path to be returned.
- Windows 7: PDH.DLL and 40 other DLL's are loaded, and STAY loaded once PdhBrowseCounters returns. Manually unloading the DLL's often causes crashes. This may or may not have something to do with .NET 4.0 being present.

Syntax

Parameters

Return value

Remarks

Examples

Requirements

See also