How to get the windows performance counter using PowerShell?

To get the Windows Performance counter using the Powershell, we can use the Get-Counter cmdlet.

There are various performance counters available to measure the performance of the windows operating system. Get-Counter cmdlet is used to retrieve the performance of the local or the remote systems with the specific counter name.

When you just run a Get-Counter command, it shows the main basic counters like Nic, Processor, disks, etc on the local system.  as shown below.

Example

PS C:\> Get-Counter
Timestamp                 CounterSamples
---------                 --------------
4/7/2021 7:41:42 PM       \labmachine2k16\network interface(intel[r] 82574l gigabit network connection)\bytes total/sec :
                          0

                          \labmachine2k16\network interface(isatap.{5008ca11-6974-4ec6-b2d7-eef6f9632c45})\bytes total/sec :
                          0

                          \labmachine2k16\processor(_total)\% processor time :
                          65.3778486182899

                          \labmachine2k16\memory\% committed bytes in use :
                          36.8481297364571

                          \labmachine2k16\memory\cache faults/sec :
                          1168.99908419505

                          \labmachine2k16\physicaldisk(_total)\% disk time :
                          16.2392354345686

                          \labmachine2k16\physicaldisk(_total)\current disk queue length :
                          2

To get the counters on the remote system use -ComputerName parameter.

Example

Get-Counter -ComputerName TestMachine

To get the various available counter list, use -ListSet parameter.

Example

Get-Counter -ListSet *

Output

You can see the counterSetName with various counters in the Counter property. The machinename property shows the local or the remote machine. A dot (.) indicates the local machine name.

To find the specific counter related to Processor use the below command.

Example

Get-Counter -ListSet * | where{$_.CounterSetName -like "*Processor*"} | Select CounterSetName, Counter

Output

Similarly to get the disk-related counters use the below command,

Example

Get-Counter -ListSet * | where{$_.CounterSetName -like "*disk*"} | Select CounterSetName, Counter