Windows (Server 2012) ifIndex persistence

Question

I'm doing some polling of specific adapters on some PCs running windows via SNMP. I've noticed that polling using an OID constructed with the interface's ifIndex is unreliable as it appears that the ifTable is created dynamically. I found some Cisco documentation that mentions that ifIndex is no longer persistent as of RFC2863. The documentation introduces a feature of Cisco routers that allows for ifIndex persistence between reboots.

Can such a thing be achieved in Windows? I want to avoid enumeration and identification of interfaces as it is impractical/difficult to do for my application

Answer 1

Unlike (newer, IOS 12+) Cisco devices, Windows does not have a fixed interface scheme.

The interface list is generated on boot and can change while running (think Wireless, dial-up, VPN, or tunneling interfaces; or link loss). That being said, on a stable Windows system the values should be consistent.

I would try the last known value, do a sanity check and re-enumerate the interfaces if it fails.