EventLog

Provides interaction with Windows event logs.

EventLog lets you access or customize Windows event logs, which record information about important software or hardware events. Using EventLog, you can read from existing logs, write entries to logs, create or delete event sources, delete logs, and respond to log entries. You can also create new logs when creating an event source.

This type implements the IDisposable interface. When you have finished using the type, you should dispose of it either directly or indirectly. To dispose of the type directly, call its Dispose method in a try/catch block. To dispose of it indirectly, use a language construct such as using (in C#) or Using (in Visual Basic). For more information, see the "Using an Object that Implements IDisposable" section in the IDisposable interface topic.

In addition to providing access to individual event logs and their entries, the EventLog class lets you access the collection of all event logs. You can use the static members of EventLog to delete logs, get log lists, create or delete a source, or determine if a computer already contains a particular source.

There are three default event logs: Application, System, and Security. A Security log is read-only. Other applications and services you install, such as Active Directory, might have additional event logs.

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