windows_exporter is a tool designed to function as a Prometheus exporter that targets Windows servers and applications. Its role is to gather various performance statistics, usually in XML, and translate the data into a format that Prometheus can read and process.
Tailor the collectors to your needs
As you probably hinted, this is not a tool for the average user. I mean, feel free to use it, but the metrics that the utility provides are overkill and not necessary for everyday computer use. The tool appears to aim at professionals that oversee large environments and that rely on Prometheus for monitoring.
As it surveils metrics across many systems, it can alert the team when a resource is not acting properly. The tool features dozens of collectors that can help you track anything from how much CPU power is used to the data being sent and received over the network.
By default, the utility gathers data from all the active collectors at once, so you can get a full picture of the state of the system. Nevertheless, you can set up filters so that they only focus on the specific data you want.
Use flags to trigger certain behaviors
In addition to the type of data to be collected, the application allows you to configure how the app itself should behave and respond. This is typically done with flags, and you can use various global behaviors for the app. For example, you can use a flag to set the address the app should listen to for incoming data requests or set a port number, if you’re monitoring apps.
The program can also be set up via the configuration file before the actual installation. Instead of typing in the flags every time, you can set up the global parameters of windows_explorer along with the collectors and option via the configuration file.