Can you still monitor your Windows 11 with SNMP

October 5th, 2021. Windows 11 is now generally available. It delivers modern and fresh design, it utilizes the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams comes integrated and delivers the best Windows ever for gaming. If you are coming from the network monitoring world, you are probably asking yourself if you can still monitor your Windows 11 machines using SNMP.

The short answer is: “Yes, you can”. But, how? Can you still install it via Control Panel? Does it include SNMP?

Microsoft deprecated SNMP from Control Panel > Add Program and Features applet due to security reasons.

Install SNMP via Settings

However, in Windows 11 23H2 (other versions were not tested in this blog article, but you can still try them), you can still install it via Settings.

1. Hold the Windows logo and press I to open Settings.
2. Click on Systems on the left side, and then click Optional features.

3. Click on View features.

4. Enter SNMP, and then select SNMP and WMI SNMP Provider, and click Next.

5. Click Add.
6. Wait until SNMP and WMI SNMP Provider are installed.

7. Right click on Start Menu > Run > type services.msc to open Services applet and then navigate to installed SNMP Service > Right click > Properties.
8. Click on the Security tab to configure the community string and ACL.
9. Click on Add… under Community to create a community string. In my case, the community string is called prtg.
10. Select Accept SNMP packets from these hosts and click Add… to add the IP of your NMS (Network Monitoring Solution). In my case, the IP is 192.168.88.245 which is my PRTG Core Server. This means the Windows machine will only accept SNMP communication coming and going to my NMS.

11. Click Apply and OK and you are done.

Install SNMP via Windows Terminal

If that doesn’t work, the alternative that works on every Windows version is using Windows Terminal (formerly PowerShell).

In order to install the SNMP using Windows Terminal, follow the instructions below.

1. Right click on Start Menu and select Windows Terminal (Admin). It was called PowerShell in Windows 10.
2. Type the following command and press Enter.

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name “SNMP.Client~~~~0.0.1.0“

3. Right click on Start Menu > Run > type services.msc to open Services applet and then navigate to installed SNMP Service > Right click > Properties.
4. Click on the Security tab to configure the community string and ACL.
5. Click on Add… under Community to create a community string. In my case, the community string is called prtg.
6. Select Accept SNMP packets from these hosts and click Add… to add the IP of your NMS (Network Monitoring Solution). In my case, the IP is 192.168.88.245 which is my PRTG Core Server. This means the Windows machine will only accept SNMP communication coming and going to my NMS.

7. Click Apply and OK and you are done.

How to monitor Windows 11 using PRTG

SNMP is ready and you can monitor your Windows 11 machine by using SNMP, or SNMP Traps (requires additional configuration). In the case below, I do monitor different metrics (uptime, CPU load, RAM, HDD usage, network traffic, and DNS service) on my Windows 11 machine using PRTG.

What if you need to perform secured Windows monitoring using SNMPv3?

Microsoft doesn’t natively support SNMP v3 (encryption, authentication). As it isn’t possible to achieve it due to the lack of native SNMP v3 functionalities in Windows and Windows Server, the alternative is to install and use third-party SNMP v3 agents. I got you covered with an article that explains all the steps How to achieve SNMPv3 compliance in Windows and Windows Server.

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