Send yourtips [email protected] 27 Dec 2019-7Jan 2020^65WebUserMasterclassTAKE IT TOTHE NEXT LEVEL
Moreadvanced tipsforwhen you’refeeling bravetypeevent logs.Selectone of the
itemsint he search results to seewhat
informationisa vailable online. Click a
link to open abrowser windowand read
therelevantweb ar ticles.ViewWindowslogsizes
Windows logs ahugenumberof
events,and thebasic text log files that
manyapplicationsproduceare not
particularlyeasy to view.Thankfully,
Windows stor es events in aspeciallog
and provides autility to browse and
view them.Toa ccess it,click Start, type
event viewer,then click it when it
appearsint he search results.
Alternativ ely, open ControlPanel,then
click Administrative Tools, EventViewer
–thisoptionworks in Windows 7, too.
Select Windows Logs in theleft-hand
sidebar, and thelogs appear in the
middle section, showing thetype, the
number of events in eachtype andthe
size.Somecan betens of megabytes.Viewapplicationlogs
When yourun an application,
includingsystemtools suchas thedisk
defragmenter, theevent is stored in the
applications log, alon gwith it sresult.
This happenswhether it’s successful or
not. Sometimesthe logfileist he only
waytof indout aboutminor pr oblems
that don’twarrant aWindows alert.
Click Start, typeevent viewer,
open it,then expand Windows Logs in
thesidebar andselect Application.Look
forwarnings, errors andcriticalevents
indic ated by yellow triangle and red
circle icons. Awhite ‘i’iconindicates
successful events such as star ting
programs andperformin gactions of
varioustypes.These entries are
includedsimplyfor your information.
Select an eventfromthe listtos ee a
description. Thiscan betechnicaland
youmay notunderstand muchoft he
information, butsometimes thecause of
theproblemisobvious,suchasanerror
of some sort.You maybesurprisedby
what goesoninWindows withoutyou
knowing –thereare oftenlotsof
warnin gs and errors,evenwhen your PC
seemstoberunningperfectlywell.successful operations,thisone only
collects errors,which makesitagood
placetol ook if you’re having
problems with Windows.
Feel free to investigat eerrors, but
don’t worryaboutthem toomuch
becauseWindows constantlydetects
and ignoresminor problems.When
yousee howmanythereare,you
realise howwellWindows copeswith
them.Itw ould be nice if we could
solvethem all, butit’snot realistic.
Serious prob lems gene rate error
messageson screen,and it’s those
that youreally needto worryabout.LogWindowsstartup
WhatdoesWindows do when it starts
up and loadsthe desktop? Do yousee
anyerror messagesor warnin gs?Isit
loadingmalware ?Iss omething
failing?Ify ou want to seewhat’s
goingonand perhapstry to solveany
startup prob lems ,enablethe
Windows boot-loggingfeature.
Press Windows+Rand type
msconfigto run theSystem
Configuration tool.Selectthe Boot
taband tick thebox next to ‘Bootlog’,
then click OK.When younextrestart
your PC,Windows will logevery file it
loadstoC:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt.
Double-click thelog in an Explorer
windowtoopen it in Notepad.
When you’ve had alook at thefile,
go backtoSystemConfiguration and
clearthe tick next to ‘Bootlog’,
because there’ snoneed to create a
logevery time youstart Windows.Viewsystem logs
Windows Update is amajor source
of frustration formanypeople.
Thankfully, if it gets stuc korstops
working, thelogs canreveal the
nature of th eproblem. Even with logs
thecause maynot be obvious, butit’s
certainly worthtrying.
Afterafaile dorsuccessful
Windows upda te,click Start, type
event viewer,open it,expand
Windows Logs in thesidebar and
select System.Lotsofother system
events appear in this logfilebesides
Windows Update,sol ook for
WindowsUpdateClie nt in theSource
column. Select an eventtor eadits
description.
TheSystemlog sectionalso
contains details of virus definition
updatesfor Windows Securityand
many Registry operations such as
clearing and settingRegistryvalues.Seemore Windows
Update logs
Windows cangeneratemorethan
20 differen ttypes of logfilewhen
running Windows Update.Thereare
logs forwhen anupdate is su ccessful,
when it fails,when it fails during the
second restart,and so on.Tosee
thenamesand locations of th ese
files,gotobit.ly/logs491.Showadministrativeevents
In theEvent Viewer,expand Custom
Viewsand select Administrative
Events.Unlikeother logs,which showUseEvent Viewer to exploreWindowslog
file sand checkfor errors
LogWindows star tupprocesses by enablingthe‘Boot log’ option