Use Windows 2000 Event Viewer on a daily basis to check both the system log and application log on your production servers for the following problems:
- Impending hardware problems that can be detected early because they usually begin producing errors in the system log and event log before severe data corruption occurs.
- Impending operating system problems that can be detected after viewing the system log that otherwise might not be detected until a a server is shut down and restarted.
- Non-disaster-related problems, such an informational events, that may involve an increase in virtual memory.
To make your Exchange 2000 event logs more useful and powerful tools for problem solving, you should first modify the default settings for the application log and the system log. The settings you should modify involve the size of the log files and how the space in the logs can be reused.
To modify the default settings for the application log and the system log
- Click Start, click Run, type eventvwr, and then click OK.
- In Event Viewer, in the details pane, right-click Application Log, and then click Properties.
- On the General tab, in the Maximum log size box, increase the maximum log size to between 10,000 KB and 50,000 KB. The log size you select depends on the number of mailboxes there are in your server running Exchange 2000. If your server has less than a few thousand mailboxes, set the log size to 10,000 KB. If your server has more than a few thousand mailboxes, set the maximum log size to a larger value.
- Under When maximum log size is reached, click Overwrite events as needed so your application log files do not become full in case a problem occurs that generates hundreds of logs. This ensures that your logs are always kept current.
- To save these settings, click OK.
- Repeat this procedure for the system log.
For a more general picture of Event Viewer, click here.
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Premium Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition
- Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server
