Query Regarding Metric Name Changes and Deprecations in Windows Exporter

Exporters and Metrics
1

Hello All,

We are currently using Windows Exporter to collect system metrics for Prometheus, which we then use in our Grafana dashboards and alerts.

Initially, we were on version 0.24.0, where we relied on metrics such as:

  • windows_os_physical_memory_free_bytes

  • windows_cs_physical_memory_bytes

After upgrading to Windows Exporter 0.31.3, we noticed that some collectors like CS, LOGON and metric names from the older version have been deprecated or removed and equivalent replacement metrics are not always easy to identify. This causes challenges during upgrades as many of our dashboards and alerts break and require manual changes.

I would like to know:

  1. Is there a central location (release notes, migration guide, or documentation) that lists all deprecated metrics and their replacements between versions?

  2. Are there any best practices recommended for handling metric name/structure changes in Prometheus exporters so upgrades can be done more smoothly?

Any guidance or documentation you could provide would be greatly appreciated, as this would help us plan upgrades without service impacts.

Thank you in advance.

2

We got bit on the same thing when we moved to 0.31 a while back. CS was deprecated, and broke some of our dashboards. After this, we started looking specifically for “Breaking Changes” in the release notes before doing any upgrades.

Here’s the centralized documentation you’re looking for. Note that you’ll want to use the “Find a release” search function in the upper right if you’re jumping forward across releases, and check the minor (i.e. 0.26, 0.30) releases between your current release and the one you’re upgrading to: