WindowsPerf (wperf)

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About this Install Guide

Reading time:  15 min
Last updated:  14 Mar 2025
Reading time:
  15 min
Last updated:
  14 Mar 2025
Author:Jason Andrews, Arm
Official docs:View
Author:
  • Jason Andrews, Arm
Official docs:
View

This guide is intended to get you up and running with this tool quickly with the most common settings. For a thorough review of all options, refer to the official documentation.

WindowsPerf is a Linux Perf-inspired Windows on Arm performance profiling tool. Profiling is based on the Arm AArch64 PMU and its hardware counters. WindowsPerf supports the counting model for obtaining aggregate counts of occurrences of PMU events, and the sampling model for determining the frequencies of event occurrences produced by program locations at the function, basic block, and instruction levels. WindowsPerf is an open-source project hosted on GitLab

WindowsPerf consists of a kernel-mode driver and a user-space command-line tool. You can seamlessly integrate the WindowsPerf command line tool with both the WindowsPerf Visual Studio Extension and the WindowsPerf VS Code Extension . These extensions, which you can download from the Visual Studio Marketplace, enhance the functionality of WindowsPerf by providing a user-friendly interface, and additional features for performance analysis and debugging. This integration allows developers to efficiently analyze and optimize their applications directly within their preferred development environment.

Note

You cannot use WindowsPerf on virtual machines, such as cloud instances.

Install

You can now install WindowsPerf directly from winget . Open an Administrator terminal on PowerShell and type

    

        
        
winget install WindowsPerf

The output should look like:

    

        
        Found WindowsPerf [Arm.WindowsPerf] Version 4.3.1.0
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://developer.arm.com/-/cdn-downloads/permalink/WindowsPerf/Installer/windowsperf-4.3.1.msi
  3.07 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Successfully installed

Image Alt Text:Winget installation video

It will install the latest available WindowsPerf along with the WPA plugins . To check that the installation was done correctly open a new terminal tab or window and follow the instructions under the verify installation section

Uninstall

If you need to uninstall WindowsPerf, open an Administrator terminal on PowerShell and run:

    

        
        
winget uninstall WindowsPerf

The output from a successful uninstallation will look like:

    

        
        Found WindowsPerf [Arm.WindowsPerf]
Starting package uninstall...
Successfully uninstalled

Visual Studio and the Windows Driver Kit (WDK)

WindowsPerf relies on dll files installed with Visual Studio, from the Community Edition or higher and, optionally, installers from the Windows Driver Kit extension.

For information about the WDK installation process, see Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) .

See also the Visual Studio for Windows on Arm install guide .

Download WindowsPerf

You can download the latest release package, windowsperf-bin-<version>.zip from the Linaro GitLab repository:

    

        
        
https://gitlab.com/Linaro/WindowsPerf/windowsperf/-/releases

To download directly from command prompt, use:

    

        
        
mkdir windowsperf-bin-4.0.0
cd windowsperf-bin-4.0.0
curl -L -O https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/40381146/packages/generic/windowsperf/4.0.0/windowsperf-bin-4.0.0.zip

Unzip the package:

    

        
        
tar -xmf windowsperf-bin-4.0.0.zip

Install wperf driver

You can install the kernel driver using the supplied wperf-devgen installer.

The wperf-devgen tool has been designated as the preferred installer and uninstaller for the WindowsPerf Kernel Driver in the latest release. This tool offers a simple process for managing the installation and removal of the driver.

Note

You must install the driver as Administrator.

Open a Windows Command Prompt terminal with Run as administrator selected.

Make sure you are in the windowsperf-bin-<version> directory:

    

        
        
cd windowsperf-bin-4.0.0

Install with wperf-devgen

Navigate to the wperf-driver folder and run the installer:

    

        
        
cd wperf-driver
wperf-devgen install

The output should be similar to:

    

        
        Executing command: install.
Install requested.
Device installed successfully

Verify install

You can check everything is working by running the wperf executable.

Note

Once you have installed the driver, you can use wperf without Administrator privileges.

For example:

    

        
        
cd ..\wperf
wperf --version

You see output similar to:

    

        
                Component     Version  GitVer    FeatureString
        =========     =======  ======    =============
        wperf         4.0.0    b18197bd  +etw-app
        wperf-driver  4.0.0    b18197bd  +etw-drv

Uninstall wperf driver

You can uninstall (or remove) the kernel driver using supplied wperf-devgen uninstaller.

Note

You must uninstall the driver as Administrator.

Uninstall with wperf-devgen

    

        
        
cd windowsperf-bin-4.0.0\wperf-driver
wperf-devgen uninstall

The output is similar to:

    

        
        
Executing command: uninstall.
Uninstall requested.
Root\WPERFDRIVER
Device found
Device uninstalled successfully

Install WindowsPerf Virtual Studio Extension (optional)

WindowsPerf GUI (Graphical User Interface) is a Visual Studio 2022 extension designed to bring a seamless UI experience to WindowsPerf, the command-line performance profiling tool for Windows on Arm. It is available on the Visual Studio Marketplace .

Install by opening Extensions menu, click Manage Extensions, and click Browse. Type WindowsPerf to search for Arm WindowsPerf GUI extension. Click Install.

How to set up wperf.exe path in the extension

In order to set the path to the wperf.exe executable, go to Tools -> Options -> WindowsPerf -> WindowsPerf Path and set the absolute path to the wperf.exe executable and then click on the Validate button.

Also, visit WindowsPerf GUI project website on GitLab for more details and latest updates.

Install WindowsPerf VS Code Extension (optional)

In addition to the command-line tools, WindowsPerf is available on the VS Code Marketplace .

Install by opening the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X) and searching for WindowsPerf. Click Install.

Open Settings (Ctrl+,) > Extensions > WindowsPerf, and specify the path to the wperf executable.

Non-Windows on Arm host

You can only generate reports from a Windows on Arm device.

If using a non-Windows on Arm host, you can import and analyze WindowsPerf JSON reports from such devices.

You do not need to install wperf on non-Windows on Arm devices.

WindowsPerf

WindowsPerf GUI


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