All Windows events on a host

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Windows event logs provide valuable information that can be used during an investigation to facilitate answering questions about the hosts behavior, state, health, or performance. You want visibility into all Windows event logs on a host.

Data required

Microsoft: Windows update logs

Procedure

In Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud Platform, verify that you deployed the Splunk Add-on for Microsoft Windows add-on to your search heads, indexer, and universal forwarders on the monitored systems. For more information, see About installing Splunk add-ons.

Click here for an example inputs.conf file that can be deployed to the universal forwarder on the Windows host to collect recommended Windows event logs.
Run the following search. You can optimize it by specifying an index and adjusting the time range.
```
host="<name of host to check>" source=WinEventLog:* <optional keywords>
```

Search explanation

The table provides an explanation of what each part of this search achieves. You can adjust this query based on the specifics of your environment.

Splunk Search	Explanation
`host="<name of host to check>" source=WinEventLog:* <optional keywords>`	Search indexes where Windows event log data is being collected and filter down to the desired hosts to check. Add optional keywords that are relevant to the investigation. For instance, adding `service stopped` to the search might help uncover instances where a service was stopped on the host. Otherwise, delete this part of the search.

Next steps

This information provided by this search can help in other investigations.

Additionally, you might be interested in other processes associated with the Maintaining Microsoft Windows systems use case.