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I'm trying to view the Shutdown Event Tracker logs in the Event Viewer, on windows server 2008 r8, but I can't find the messages that I supplied when previously restart the server.

Where in the Event Viewer can I see these logs?

7 Answers 7

60

Open event viewer. Expand windows logs. Click system, then either find or filter for event ID 1074. And you will see all your shut down logs.

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  • thanks, that's very handy. Windows doesn't make it easy to navigate the logs without knowing what you're looking for May 23, 2011 at 8:57
  • 16
    You need to also include 1076 (Unplanned shutdown) and filter for source user32
    – user115557
    Mar 27, 2012 at 18:52
  • 9
    Also event 6008 "Unexpected Shutdown" might be interesting... Jul 26, 2013 at 7:56
  • @Jacob, How do you get the list of event IDs and what they represent?
    – Pacerier
    Jul 30, 2015 at 11:43
  • 1
    @Pacerier Good luck with that....but here's a start: eventid.net
    – leeand00
    May 2, 2016 at 17:28
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I know this is a very old question. But this might help someone who is looking for the same solution. you can use a single line in powershell (which is available in all OS later than win 2003) to find out the reboot history. Just open powershell.exe from run prompt and enter the below command.

Get-EventLog System | Where-Object {$_.EventID -eq "1074" -or $_.EventID -eq "6008" -or $_.EventID -eq "1076"} | ft Machinename, TimeWritten, UserName, EventID, Message -AutoSize -Wrap
9

If you or others are just trying to find the most recent boot time, the easiest way I've found is to run this in cmd:

systeminfo | find "System Boot Time"

From powercram.com

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  • If you see nothing, just remove the find. I did not have that info there, but I did have "System Up Time". Jul 26, 2013 at 7:54
  • @Nenotlep, Best is to simply do a case insensitive search of: systeminfo | find /i "system" | find /i "time". Works on all systems
    – Pacerier
    Jul 30, 2015 at 11:46
  • systeminfo | findstr ime:
    – Amit Naidu
    Mar 10, 2020 at 18:44
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Another useful approach I've found, since we frequently monitor our ISP hosted servers for outages, is to create a custom event view as follows:

Open Event Viewer then

  • Right click Custom Views
  • Click Create Custom View
  • Under the Filter tab
    • Keep Logged as Any time
    • Select all the Event level types (Critical, Warning, etc.)
    • Choose by source = Windows Logs > System
    • For Event ID under the Includes/Excludes Event IDs section enter 1074 for the Event ID
  • Click Ok
  • Enter a name like Shutdown Events and any description then
  • Click Ok again to complete the custom event log.

Your new custom view should show up in the list of custom views with the correct filter applied.

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  • 2
    Based on the other answers, I've changed this step for my views: For Event ID under the Includes/Excludes Event IDs section enter 1074,1076,6008 for the Event ID Jul 12, 2017 at 7:52
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Slightly cleaner Powershell one-liner that I use to filter out shutdown related EventIDs:

Get-EventLog system |?{$_.EventID -in 6008,41,1074,1001}| ft -w

To restrict that to just the most useful properties:

Get-EventLog system | ?{6008,41,1074,1076,1001 -eq $_.EventID}| select EventID, TimeGenerated, Message| ft -w

Alternatively, to search by message text:

Get-EventLog system -m "*Shutdown*" | select EventID, TimeGenerated, Message| ft -w
0

You can try search the event viewer by filtering it using this event ID:

Event ID 41: The system rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error occurs when the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Event ID 1074: Logged when an app (such as Windows Update) causes the system to restart, or when a user initiates a restart or shutdown.

Event ID 6006: Logged as a clean shutdown. It gives the message, “The Event log service was stopped.”

Event ID 6008: Logged as a dirty shutdown. It gives the message, “The previous system shutdown at time on date was unexpected.”
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Expand The Windows Logs in The Event Viewer Application and select System. Then in The System Panel, usually appears in the middle, sort them by Level Or ID.

Click On the every entry to see the description in the bottom panel

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