Have you heard of Event Viewer? It’s an invaluable troubleshooting and optimization tool in Windows. Whether you’re experiencing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), or if you simply want to speed up and improve your computer’s performance, you may want to access Event Viewer. Available in all versions of Windows, it can provide you with a wealth of information about your computer and its behind-the-scenes process.
What Is Event Viewer?
Event Viewer is a Windows tool that contains a log of all computer events. Windows will automatically create logs during specific events. Errors, for instance, will trigger a log. Windows will create these logs automatically, and it will store them in the Event Viewer. Accessing the Event Viewer tool in Windows will allow you to view your computer’s logged errors and other events.
You may find logs for the following types of events in Event Viewer:
- BSOD
- Windows log-ins
- Programs that unexpectedly close
- Program errors
- Security breaches
What You Can Learn From Event Viewer
You can learn a lot by using Event Viewer. For starters, it will reveal logged errors. You can see the specific types of errors that are affecting your computer by accessing Event Viewer.
Event Viewer doesn’t just reveal the types of errors affecting your computer; it reveals other information about those errors. Event Viewer will record the time when the errors occurred. It will also record the source, ID, level and more.
Steps to Accessing Event Viewer
The specific steps you’ll need to perform to access Event Viewer will vary depending on which version of Windows you use. All versions come with Event Viewer. Nonetheless, some of them require different steps to access Event Viewer than others.
You can typically access Event Viewer in Control Panel. Pull up the Windows Control Panel and click the Windows Tools icon. From there, you should see a program icon for Event Viewer. Clicking this program icon will launch Event Viewer.
Another way to access Event Viewer is to search for it. Type “event viewer” in the Windows search bar. You should see the Event Viewer icon appear, which you can click to launch Event Viewer. You can choose specific types of events on the left-hand side of the tool. Information about those events will then be displayed in the center column of the tool.
Event Viewer won’t necessarily fix errors — at least not on its own. It’s simply a troubleshooting tool that provides information about logged errors affecting your computer.