Windows Server 2003 in a Nutshell

You can start Event Viewer by:

Administrative Tools Event Viewer

Computer Management System Tools Event Viewer

Under the Action menu, you can select the following:

Root node

Select this to connect to a remote computer whose event logs you want to monitor or to open an archived event log file.

Particular log

Select this to display its logged events in the details pane. Double-click on an event to display additional information concerning the event.

Under the View menu, you can select:

All Records

Displays all events recorded in the log (i.e., turns off any filter you created).

Filter

Lets you create a filter to display only certain kinds of events. This is a very useful feature, as event logs tend to grow unmanageably large otherwise .

Newest First or Oldest First

Changes the order of the events (however, it is easier just to click the Date column header in the details pane).

Find

Lets you search a log for a particular type of event. This is a powerful adjunct feature to Filter, and it's particularly useful if you are searching for all instances of a particular event in order to gauge its frequency (which may be a measure of its seriousness).