When many events logs are being generated, the possibility exists that events are being overwritten to quickly, which causes that important information would be lost. Increasing the maximum size of the Windows Event Logs might help to store events longer on each computer.

There are 2 ways to increase the size of the Windows Event Logs:

• Via a domain policy: For computers which are member of a Windows domain, domain policies can be used to change the settings on all computers to which the policy is applicable.
• Change locally on the PC: On stand-alone computers, the size of the events logs can be changed locally on each computer. It is not advised to change the log size locally on computers which are member of a domain, since there might be policies that overwrite this setting (afterall, domain policies take precedence over locally defined policies).

Via a domain policy

The entries that need to be changed to increase the maximum size of an event log can be found at:

• Computer Configuration
  • Windows Settings
    • Security Settings
      • Event Log
        • Maximum application log size
        • Maximum security log size
        • Maximum system log size

Recommended values:

Make sure you checked the "Define this policy" checkbox

• Maximum application log size: 16 MB
• Maximum security log size: 64 MB
• Maximum system log size: 16 MB

Change locally on the PC

• Right-click on 'My Computer' on your desktop
• Click on 'Manage'
• Open the tree-structure and navigate to "Computer Management" → "System Tools" → "Event Viewer"
• Right-click on the event log of which you would like to change the size
• Click on 'Properties'
• Now you can update the size of the event log