Windows Event Viewer

A lot of people are just now discovering Windows Event viewer because Windows 10 has Event Viewer listed on its right-click menu (when you right-click the start button – or hold down the Windows Key and press  the X key). And apparently easy access to Event Viewer is causing a lot of concern with a lot of people and it’s mostly unnecessary concern.

First, Windows Event Viewer has been around for over a decade. It’s nothing new. However, Windows 10 makes it a lot easier to find and a lot of people are finding it.

Not to lessen Event Viewer’s importance, but there are always going to be errors and warnings when you look in Event Viewer and most of them are not serious and most do not mean something is wrong with your computer. It would be extremely rare to open Event Viewer and not see any warnings and/or errors., and you can’t solve all of them.

My main computer is well-maintained and it good working order, but a quick glance at my Event Viewer would lead you to believe that my computer has a lot of errors.

Yikes! Looks bad doesn’t it? Look at this!

Is my computer ready for the junk pile? No. It’s a very well maintained, smooth running, fast computer. I couldn’t do my job if it weren’t. But someone who doesn’t understand the Windows Event Viewer looking at my computer’s Event Viewer logs would concluded my computer is one step away from disaster.

You can get details about each error (in red) and each warning (in yellow) by clicking on the error or warning. But what you  see many not be of much help to you unless you know what you’re looking at – or you’re a great googler .

I clicked on a critical error (the one in the image above showing a white X in a red circle) and got this general description. It says it’s a critical error. So I’d better click on the “Details” tab to find out more.

So I googled the error and found that I should check my Device Manager to make sure there are no errors with my hardware devices.  I checked and all is well. It turns out this error was temporary and not “critical” at all.

So why is there an Event Manager? Event Manager can be used to troubleshoot problems with your computer. But just seeing a bunch of error messages and warnings does not mean there’s anything wrong with your computer. Confused yet?

Unless you know what you’re doing or you’re willing to spend the time to google all the error codes and understand whatever turns up in your search, Event Viewer can be more disturbing than helpful.

Even Viewer is best used if you’re troubleshooting a specific problem on your computer and you’re willing to take the time to search error codes and details to learn which each error is. But just opening up Event Viewer and seeing a lot of errors and warnings does not mean there’s something seriously wrong with your computer. Most of those errors and warnings are fleeting issues that don’t need fixing. I’ve seen thousands of computers during my time with Cloudeight Direct and I’ve never seen a computer where Event Viewer didn’t list a litany of warnings and errors.

So, if you decide to look at your Event Viewer, don’t panic when you see a lot of error and warnings. If you’re troubleshooting a particular problem and you are willing to research every detail shown, then Event Viewer can be another tool you can use to find out what is causing a problem with your computer.

There’s no reason to conclude that something is terribly wrong with your computer just because your Event Viewer shows a lot of errors and warnings.