Windows PowerShell Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 23. Event Logs

Introduction

Event logs form the core of most monitoring and diagnosis on Windows. To support this activity, PowerShell offers both the Get-EventLog and Get-WinEvent cmdlets to let you query and work with event log data on a system. In addition to simple event log retrieval, PowerShell also includes many other cmdlets to create, delete, customize, and interact with event logs.

In addition to the (now “classic”) event logs exposed by the *-EventLog cmdlets, Windows Vista and beyond have a significantly expanded and revamped event logging system compared to Windows XP. The features of the new system are different enough that we expose them through an entirely new Get-WinEvent cmdlet. If you need to read events from Vista-style event logs, you’ll need the Get-WinEvent cmdlet. If you need to read events from classic event logs, the choice is up to you.

List All Event Logs

Problem

You want to determine which event logs exist on a system.

Solution

To list all classic event logs on a system, use the -List parameter of the Get-EventLog cmdlet:

PS > Get-EventLog -List Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Log ------ ------ -------------- ------- --- 20,480 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 1,933 Application 15,168 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 0 DFS Replication 20,480 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 0 HardwareEvents 512 7 OverwriteOlder 0 Internet Explorer 20,480 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 0 Key Management Service 8,192 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 0 Media Center 128 0 OverwriteAsNeeded 2 OAlerts 1,024 7 OverwriteOlder 424 ScriptEvents ...