# Windows agents windows-exporter: wmi or prometheus?

**URL:** <https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977>\
**Category:** Help\
**Tags:** windows-monitoring, agent\
**Created:** [February 23, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977 "2021-02-23T16:57:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![audioscavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@audioscavenger](https://community.netdata.cloud/u/audioscavenger)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977/1 "2021-02-23T16:57:07Z")

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happily using a single docker node to monitor many Windows servers as recommended, with **windows\_exporter.exe**

i setup **wmi.conf** and **prometheus.conf** and get all my servers duped with different data sets, and some redundancy

should i stick with either one or both?  
what is the best practice? i am afraid this may double the number of requests to each windows agent

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**Author:** ![ilyam8](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/community.netdata.cloud/ilyam8/32/134_2.png) [@ilyam8](https://community.netdata.cloud/u/ilyam8)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977/2 "2021-02-23T17:38:49Z")

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Hi @audioscavenger

I would suggest using [wmi](https://github.com/netdata/go.d.plugin/tree/master/modules/wmi#windows-machine-monitoring-with-netdata). Both will do, but using [prometheus](https://github.com/netdata/go.d.plugin/tree/master/modules/prometheus#prometheus-endpoint-monitoring-with-netdata) you get less meaningful charts due its generic nature. And we have [predefined alarms for `wmi`](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/health/health.d/wmi.conf).

> i am afraid this may double the number of requests to each windows agent

You are right.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![audioscavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@audioscavenger](https://community.netdata.cloud/u/audioscavenger)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977/3 "2021-02-23T22:42:32Z")

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thank you, will stick with wmi for now!  
only drawback is that i don;t see the processes and services i monitor… below is the command i use for the exporter:

`msiexec /i windows_exporter.msi ENABLED_COLLECTORS="cpu,cs,logical_disk,net,os,service,system,memory,process" EXTRA_FLAGS="--collector.service.services-where=""Name LIKE 'MyService%%'"" --collector.process.whitelist=""MyProcess1.+|MyProcess2.+"""`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ilyam8](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/community.netdata.cloud/ilyam8/32/134_2.png) [@ilyam8](https://community.netdata.cloud/u/ilyam8)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2021, 8:49pm UTC](https://community.netdata.cloud/t/windows-agents-windows-exporter-wmi-or-prometheus/977/4 "2021-02-24T20:49:32Z")

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@audioscavenger current `wmi` implementation collects only (`ENABLED_COLLECTORS`):

- cpu
- memory
- net
- logical\_disk
- os
- system
- logon

Back then i added the most common (from my point of view) metrics. I update `wmi` if there is a request.

If you are interested in [any other metrics](https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter#collectors) i suggest to open [a feature request](https://github.com/netdata/go.d.plugin/issues/new). I can add them relatively quickly.