EventLook

In case you want to learn more about programs and system messages, errors or other warnings, then the best default choice would be Windows Event Viewer. Despite its usefulness, the user experience is kind of lacking and it is lacking some helpful features, such as the preview for event messages, for instance.

EventLook is a tiny and lightweight alternative to Windows Event Viewer designed to provide the apps and system logs in a clear and more readable way.

The application is portable, so you can start using it as soon as you decompress the archive. The program comes with a clean and well-organized interface that displays messages, errors and log events in a table that you can easily explore. More precisely, the table includes details about the type of event, source, level, event ID and the actual message. You can easily go through the non-relevant ones and find specific ones.

It is worth mentioning that the tool comes with a drop down menu in the upper left corner where you can toggle between the type of events, including system, application and Windows related operations. Moreover, you can configure the tool to display the events in a custom interval or any of the predefined times provided.

According to the developer, the application does not include a search function for the time being, but he plans to add it in one of the future updates. While not a deal breaker, the search can add quite some value to the program.

In the eventuality that you need to constantly go through the system or programs’ logs to identify and explore various events and messages, but feel that Windows Event Viewer is not enough, then perhaps you can consider giving EventLook a try.