WMI Tools Overview

In order to find reasons why WMI isn't working properly on Windows computers Microsoft has published several tools for testing a lot of aspects concerning WMI. For a more PRTG related troubleshooting approach Paessler have developed their own tool, the Paessler WMI Tester.

Microsoft WMI testing tools

WMI Diag

A very thorough and verbose tool for finding troubles on a Windows computer. Please refer to Information about the WMI Diagnostics Tool provided by Microsoft

WBEMTest

For browsing through WMI's performance counters use this tool: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785775(WS.10).aspx

Paessler WMI Tester

In order to troubleshoot WMI issues, please test the connection using our WMI Tester, available at https://www.paessler.com/tools/wmitester.

In order to test the connectivity and availability of the desired WMI counters, either for local or remote testing, start the WMI Tester and provide the following configuration data:

• Target computer name / IP address
• Domain: the Windows domain containing the computer you want to test, or the computer name if not running inside of a domain.
• User: the name of a user with login credentials for the target machine
• Password: the user’s password

Note: If you are testing the local machine, leave the above fields empty.

Further configuration entries available (under “Advanced Usage” are):

• Domain prefix: This can usually be left as NTLMDOMAIN:
• Namespace: Most WMI counters are located in root\cimv2, but here you can enter a different namespace if the need arises.
• Query: Choose between six predefined query sets (OS, process, disk space, memory, processor load, network adapter) or enter your own query (in WQL).

Note: By default, the WMI namespace used is root\cimv2.

After defining these settings click the „Test!“ button. After a while, you will either see a result table or, in the event something went wrong or the WMI service is not available, an error message.

What the WMI Tester does

The WMI Tester will forward the defined query using the provided credentials to scan against the counter in case. Generally, and if the provided credentials allow to connect to the target machine in case, the WMI tester will receive a response from the WMI service, most often in the form of a table. If an error does occur, the WMI Tester utility will provide the error code or a text alarm referring to the issue in case (for example, if it was unable to connect to the defined target machine / domain). If a result set is returned, the WMI service and the credentials provided for the target machine are working properly, and as such, the same query should be possible from within PRTG 7.

IMPORTANT!

In order to recreate the troubleshooting situation for PRTG as closely as possible you have to run the WMI Tester on the same computer where the according PRTG probe is installed.

More information about WMI and PRTG

General introduction to WMI and PRTG