Event Viewer (Eventvwr.msc)

You can use Event Viewer (Eventvwr.msc) to view logs that can help you to identify system problems when you are able to start the system in safe or normal mode. When you are troubleshooting, use these logs to isolate problems by application, driver, or service and to identify frequently occurring issues. You can save these logs to a file and specify filtering criteria.

Event Viewer provides a minimum of three logs, as follows:

• Application logs The Application log contains events logged by applications or programs. For example, a database program might record read or write errors here.
• Security logs The security log holds security event records, such as logon attempts and actions related to creating, opening, or deleting files. An administrator can specify what events to record in the security log.
• System logs The system log contains information about system features. Event Viewer logs an entry when a driver or other system feature does not load during startup. Therefore, you can use Event Viewer to search for information about drivers or services that did not load.

To use Event Viewer to obtain driver and service error information from the system log, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Under System Tools, expand Event Viewer, expand Windows Logs, and then click System.
3. Click the Action menu and then click Filter Current Log.
4. Under Event Level, select the Critical and Error check boxes.
5. In the Event source list, click Service Control Manager and then click OK.
6. Double-click an event entry to view details.

Not all startup problems result in an entry being added to the event log. Therefore, you might not find any related information.