The WMI Performance Test (2012 Edition)

Written by Dirk Paessler | Jul 12, 2012

Since 2009 we have been conducting WMI performance tests to help us understand why some customers run into more WMI overload situations in their networks than other customers. In the past we always found that Windows Vista and Windows 2008 R1 are no good choices for WMI. What about Windows 8 and 2012?

For our former blog posts, please see Don't Use Windows Vista And Windows 2008 for Network Monitoring via WMI! and Revisited: Don't Use Windows Vista And Windows 2008 R1 for Network Monitoring via WMI!

New Tests With Windows 8 and Server 2012 Preview Versions

Now that Windows 2012 and Windows 8 will be arriving this fall we have re-run our WMI tests on a huge selection of operating systems—acting both as clients and monitoring stations:

Windows Server 2012 Preview
Windows 8 Preview
Windows 7 64Bit fully patched/updated
Windows 7 64Bit straight from the CD, no patches
Windows 2008 R2 64Bit fully patched/updated
Windows 2008 R2 64Bit straight from the CD, no patches
Windows Vista 32Bit fully patched/updated
Windows 2008 R1 32Bit fully patched/updated
Windows 2003 Server 32Bit fully patched/updated
Windows 2003 Server 32Bit straight from the CD, no patches
Windows XP 32Bit straight from the CD, no patches
Windows XP 32Bit fully patched/updated

Since Windows Vista arrived with a horribly slow WMI implementation, we always need to check new Windows versions.

We found that Windows 8 and Windows 2012 are slower than previous versions. And this is the case both when used on the monitoring station (15-25% slower) and when used on the client system (15% slower).

Update: The results for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 are basically the same as in the previous tests for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Our Recommended Operating Systems Regarding WMI Performance

Based on our tests, we can update our recommendations as follows:

On monitoring stations (probes) use Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 R2 for maximum performance (Windows 7 and XP are 10% slower)
On monitoring stations (probes) avoid Windows Vista and Windows 2008 R1 at all cost
On monitored clients prefer Windows 2008 and Windows 7
On monitored clients avoid Windows XP and Windows 2003 (and Windows Server 2012, at least when the release version is not improving over the current preview)

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