How to Read Performance Counters Without Administrator Privileges [Ryan Byington]
If you have ever tried to read performance counter data on
a Windows 2003 machine as a non admin user you will have likely seen an exception
like the following:
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.
at
Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.Win32Error(Int32 errorCode, String str)
at
Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.InternalGetValue(String name, Object defaultValue,
Boolean doNotExpand, Boolean checkSecurity)
at
Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.GetValue(String name)
at
System.Diagnostics.PerformanceMonitor.GetData(String item)
at
System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterLib.GetPerformanceData(String item)
Windows 2003, Windows XP x64 Edition, and
Vista
require that the user be part of the Performance Monitor Users group to read
performance counter data. Simply adding your non admin user to this group will
fix this problem.
Accessing counters remotely is another story though. On
Windows 2003, Windows XP x64 Edition, and Vista
you still must be part of the Performance Monitor Users group on the remote
machine but there is a problem with the PerformanceCounter class where it tries
to read some registry keys on the remote machine that a non admin users do not
have access to. To give your user read access to these keys without having to be
an admin on the remote machine complete the following steps on the remote
machine:
- Open the Registry Editor by going to the Start Menu
and selecting Run…, then type “regedit”, and click the OK button.
- Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurePipeServers\winreg
registry key.
- Right click on the "winreg" key and select
Permissions. Add users or groups to which you want to grant Read access.
- Exit Registry Editor and restart Windows.
For more explanation on this process see
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=153183.
