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Supporting the Win32_PerfRawData Class

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When writing a high-performance provider that derives classes from Win32_PerfRawData, you must follow specific conventions so that WMI can supply data to the property values.

Note

Writing a WMI high-performance provider to create performance counters is not recommended on any version of the Windows operating system. For more information, see Making an Instance Provider into a High-Performance Providerand Performance Libraries and WMI.

 

The following procedure describes how to support the Win32_PerfRawData class with your high-performance provider.

To support the Win32_PerfRawData class

  1. Create your class in the Root\CIMv2 namespace.

    The class must be derived from Win32_PerfRawData and have the Hiperf qualifier set to TRUE. You can also add WDM (driver) performance data classes to the root\wmi namespace. For more information about creating your own class for WMI, see Designing Managed Object Format (MOF) Classes.

  2. Specify the provider as "NT5_GenericPerfProvider_V1" in the Provider qualifier.

  3. Specify the following class-level qualifiers:

    • HiPerf
    • Locale
    • PerfDetail
    • Provider

    For more information, see Class Qualifiers for Performance Counter Classes. Do not define the GenericPerfCtr qualifier because that is reserved for the ADAP process that transfers performance library data into WMI classes.

  4. Populate the appropriate timestamp and frequency properties used to compute counter-type formulas.

    These properties are inherited from Win32_PerfRawData and, if you are writing a high-performance provider, you must fill these out for the class to be displayed in System Monitor.

  5. Include a key property called Name in your class (this property is not required for singleton classes).

    You must not use any key property other than Name on your class.

  6. Create properties data-typed as either DWORD (uint32) or QWORD (uint64). These properties become performance counters when transferred to the performance libraries.

  7. Specify the following property level qualifiers for all properties in your class:

    • DisplayName
    • CounterType
    • DefaultScale
    • Description
    • PerfDefault
    • PerfDetail

    For more information, see Property Qualifiers for Performance Counter Classes. In addition, the Winperf.h header file contains values that you can specify for PerfDetail and CounterType.

    WMI uses the DisplayName, Locale, and Description qualifiers for localization. You must add amended qualifiers to the MS_409 (English) namespace so that System Monitor can properly display your class data. This means that you amend the property definition by adding a Description qualifier with explanatory text and fill in the DisplayName value. You must also add amended qualifiers to any other locale namespace that your class supports. If a user requests data from a locale for which you do not provide amended qualifiers, WMI defaults to the definitions specified in the MS_409 namespace.

  8. Create a base property for any property that has a counter type expecting a base value.

    This property immediately follows the property and is named propertyname**_Base**. For example, the average property AvgDiskBytesPerRead in the Win32_PerfRawData_PerfDisk_LogicalDisk class requires a base property named AvgDiskBytesPerRead_Base to count the number of samples. To determine if the counter type you want to use requires a base property, locate the counter type by name or decimal value in WMI Performance Counter Types.

  9. Make sure your provider meets the performance requirements.

Making an Instance Provider into a High-Performance Provider