Would you like to learn how to use a group policy to configure the event log size and retention time? In this tutorial, we will show you how to configure the retention time and size of the Windows Event viewer logs.
• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7
Equipment list
The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.
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Tutorial GPO – Configure the event log size and retention
On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.
Create a new group policy.
Enter a name for the new group policy.
In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.
On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.
Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.
On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.
Access the folder named Event log service.
Access one of the following folders: Application, Security, System, or Setup.
Enable the item named: Specify the maximum log file size.
Configure the Maximum log size between 1024 and 4194240.
This is between 1 MB and 4 GB.
Disable the item named: Control event log behavior when the log file reaches its maximum size.
New events will overwrite old events when the log file reaches its maximum size.
This is the default behavior on Windows.
To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.
Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.
Tutorial GPO – Windows event log
On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.
In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.
After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.
During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.
On a remote computer, verify the log size and its retention configuration.
In our example, we configured the Windows log file size and its retention.
