Using Windows Event Logs versus using a text file

Question

I'm porting a Unix server application that writes logs to text file, typically generating about 15MB of logs per day; and the log file is rotated daily by a cron job. The porting is to be a Windows service application. 99% of the logging is informative or debug information about each request the server processes; but there can also be warning and error messages logged.

Is it considered normal or appropriate practice to do the entirety of this logging using the Event Log ? As opposed to, say, logging to a text file under %APPDATA% and only using the Event Log for service start/stop messages and serious errors?

Wasn't sure if this question best suited to SF or SO but let me know if it should be reposted elsewhere instead!

No. The Windows application event may have stop/start/significant events, but is not a replacement for a traditional application log. — Greg Askew, Jun 17 '22 at 08:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '22 at 07:29

It depends. If you use functions of the event system, like for example triggering of tasks, when certain events happen, this would surely speak for the event log. The event logs can be parsed and sorted/filtered/exported/... by powershell. Still, text files are of a much simpler nature and that can be seen as a reason to use those, in case you have your own ideas how to use these logs.

Using Windows Event Logs versus using a text file

1 Answers1