Why are some Windows WMI counters available on some systems and not on others?

I am trying to measue CPU use per process with:

typeperf "\Process(SOME PROCESS)\% Processor Time" -si 1 -sc 60

The problem is that I have to do that on quite a few PCs and here problems start. Some machines return the following error:

Error: No valid counters

For example I am using exactly the same command shown above and get:

PC_A (Win7 64bit Home Edition) - type perf works
PC_B (Win7 64bit Pro Edition) - typeperf works
PC_C (Win7 64bit Pro Edition) - Error: No valid counters
PC_D (WinXP 32bit Multimedia Ed) - typeperf works
PC_E (Win Vista 64bit) - Error: No valid counters

I've spent a lot of time on that and would appreciate if someone could clarify why:

1. What is the root of these discrapencies? After all I use the same command.

2. Why does it work on 2 Win7s and not on the third one?

3. Can 'missing' performance counters be enabled / turned on somehow?

BTW - I have admin rights on all these machines.

Thanks, Artur

1 Answer

Check if the computers where you cannot read the counters are using the same language pack. I have seen this fail on systems with other language packs installed where the counters must be accessed with their localized names.