Odds are,  you were Googling something like ‘write event log PowerShell’ and you stumbled on this page.  If that’s the case and you just want to write an event to the Event Log to test something like a monitoring or alerting app, I won’t disappoint, below is what you need to know.  If you want a little more information on writing to the Event Log as part of a script, keep going.

Write-eventlog requires 4 parameters, EventID, LogName, Message and Source.  It’s the -Source part that trip people up.  If you don’t know what the source is, simply make one up.  Create the new source with the New-Eventlog command like this:

New-EventLog -LogName <Log you are writing to> -Source ‘Make one up’

For example, Adding the source HAL to the application log looks like this:

New-EventLog -LogName Application -Source ‘HAL’

Continue reading “Writing to the Windows Event Log with PowerShell” →