LiteWin exporter:
 Prometheus metrics for Windows 7

Overview

LiteWin exporter is a lightweight Prometheus exporter for Windows, written in C. It is built as a drop-in replacement for windows_exporter on machines that the official exporter no longer serves.

The problem

• windows_exporter no longer supports Windows 7. Older releases from before the Go rewrite still run, but they are resource hungry and no longer maintained.
• Low-spec machines still need monitoring, and there was no lightweight drop-in replacement.

Goals

• Primarily support Windows 7.
• Use less than 20 MB of RAM and minimal CPU.
• Rely on APIs and tools already built into Windows.
• Be a drop-in, configurable replacement for windows_exporter.

Installing

The release bundle ships both architecture builds plus installer scripts:

• install.bat installs a single host as an auto-start service (default port 9183), opens the firewall port, and can add a Windows Defender exclusion. Re-running it upgrades in place.
• install-litewin.ps1 (PowerShell 2.0+) handles fleet installs and upgrades. It downloads a versioned bundle, verifies its checksum, and scopes the firewall rule to your Prometheus scrapers.
• The exe can also be registered manually with sc create, or run in the foreground from a console for a quick check.

It is built with MinGW-w64 GCC for both architectures, with Wine used for smoke tests on the build host.

Last updated on September 27, 2026 at 7:05 AM UTC+7. See Changelog