Sorry to say it but computer errors are a fact of life. Even Windows Vista, with its improved stability, encounters computer errors from time to time. The Event Viewer is a built in Windows XP and Vista utility containing logs related to various events that have occurred. Regardless of the version of Windows you are running, the Event Viewer offers logs covering application errors and events, security-related events, and operating system errors and events.
It’s important to note that errors and events are two different things. An error is a problem encountered while an event can be a triggered or scheduled occurrence. For example, when the operating system automatically creates a restore point based on a pre-existing schedule, this is recorded in the Event Viewer logs as an event.
In Windows XP, go to the Start button, click on Run, and type in eventvwr. Click OK. In Windows Vista, go to the Start button and type Event Viewer into Search bar. Once the Event Viewer program icon appears, click it.
Once launched, you will see an overview-summary display. In the summary, you’ll see a list of event types such as critical, error, audit success, and audit failure. If you’d like to see the various events for each category, click the plus sign next to the event type. Double click the top bar of the window to make the screen full size which will allow you to better see the results. Now, you will be able to see the event type, source, log, and the number of errors that have occurred in that category for the last hour, 24 hours, week, and total.
After reviewing the summary, you can go into the different logs for further details about events. Windows Vista’s Event Viewer offers a few additional choices over the Event Viewer found in Windows XP. In Vista, click on Windows Logs which will then display:
- Application
- Security
- Setup
- System
- Forwarded Events
Click the log that interests you. For example, if you want to see the application events, click on Application. No matter which log you are examining, scroll through the list and you’ll likely see a variety of events labeled “information,” “warning,” “success audit,” and “error.” Click on the event and you’ll see detailed information about it such as what occurred, when it occurred, its source, the user logged in at the time, and more.
If you use Microsoft Office, you can even view information about your Microsoft Office sessions in Event Viewer. For example, you will find informational entries that tell you when Microsoft Word was launched, how many seconds the session lasted, how many of the seconds were active seconds, and whether or not the session ended normally.
It’s not unusual to find tens of thousands of events recorded in the various logs. This isn’t cause for alarm as many events are informational. If your computer is acting up, the Event Viewer can provide clues such as what occurred and when.
