The initial screen shows a summary of events by presenting a collapsed list of relevant event types: Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Audit Success, etc. By relevant I mean event types that have not been encountered are not listed. Most useful here is that you are provided with totals for each event type. You may need to go full screen to see it well, but for each type the summary shows you how many such types of events occurred in the last hour, the last 24 hours, the last 7 days and naturally a total.

Expand warnings and you are sure to see some example events to work with. Inside you’ll find a list of these event types with the error code number, the source of the error and to which log it was written (i.e. Application, Security, System, etc.). You can still see the totals, now broken down for each event. Double-click on an event you are taken to a new view which lists all instances of the selected event.

There are filtering options, the ability to schedule tasks based on events, several ways to view the information, export the information and navigate the information. The Windows Event log has always been a valuable source of information for administrators, now with the enhancements provided by Windows Vista this information is much easier to work with.