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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-05T17:31:46+00:00

I am having problem with previewing custom performance counters with PerflibV2. Performance Monitor shows

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I am having problem with previewing custom performance counters with PerflibV2.

Performance Monitor shows my custom performance counter group by GUID, and when I want to expand it “Can’t load counters” is shown.

I tried adding myself to “Performance Monitor Users” and “Performance Log Users” groups with no success.

I googled it, and read a lot of MSDN articles, but no success.

Is someone familiar with this problem?

Following is detailed procedure how I created and added custom performance counter:

I need to create a performance counter that will be updated from my unamanged application.

There are two approaches that I found:

  • Wrapping managed performance counter API, which is not an option because it will impact performance;

  • Using PerflibV2 which provides needed functionality;

As a test application, I created following schema.xml schema describing custom performance counter:

<!-- <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?> -->
<instrumentationManifest     
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events" 
xmlns:win="http://manifests.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/windows/events"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"    
>
<instrumentation>
    <counters xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2005/12/counters">
        <provider callback = "custom"
          applicationIdentity = "PerfCounters.exe"
          providerType = "userMode"
          providerGuid = "{ab8e1320-965a-4cf9-9c07-fe25378c2a23}">
            <counterSet
              guid = "{ad36a036-c923-4794-b696-70577630b5cf}"
              uri = "Microsoft.Windows.System.PerfCounters.MyCounterSet1"
              name = "My LogicalDisk" 
              description = "This is a sample counter set with multiple instances." 
              instances = "multiple">
                <counter id = "1"
                  uri = "Microsoft.Windows.System.PerfCounters.MyCounterSet1.MyCounter1"
                  name = "My Free Megabytes"
                  description = "First sample counter."
                  type = "perf_counter_rawcount"
                  detailLevel = "standard"
                  defaultScale = "1"/>
            </counterSet>
        </provider>
    </counters>
    </instrumentation>
</instrumentationManifest>

And executed:

ctrpp schema.xml

I added created files to my test application, and in my test app, roughly:

PerfAutoInitialize();

ULONG instanceId = 0;
wchar_t instanceName[] = {'t', 'e', 's', 't', 0};
PPERF_COUNTERSET_INSTANCE b = PerfCreateInstance(hDataSource_schema_1, &CtrSetGuid_schema_1_1, instanceName, instanceId);

I installed performance counters with:

lodctr /m:schema.xml

My PerfCounters application is up and running while trying to read counters from Performance Monitor.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    What was exact problem with my sample I am not completely sure but, there is an Microsoft example with Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1:

    http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=3138

    After istalling MS SDK sample is located at:

    C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Samples\winbase\PerfCounters\Basic\CPP

    It should be adapted for Windows 7 (ctrcpp has fewer arguments, and PerfAutoInitialize() and PerfAutoCleanup() are used instead of CounterInitialize() and CounterCleanup()).

    It app crashes on adding counter from perfmon, see:
    Perflib 2 crashes when adding a counter (from Perfmon)

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