IIS W3C Log files missing header

iis-7log-files

I've just gotten around to analyzing our log files. After banging my head with log parser and several other 'analyzer' tools I came to realize that my log files appear to be missing their header section. There are no #Software, #Version, #Date nor #Fields directives – it just starts right into the log data.
I've looked closely at the IIS logging dialog and don't see a bool there to 'enable header' or anything…

I'm using Windows Server 2008 (x64) running IIS version 7.0.6000.
Thanks.

Best Answer

Make sure the log file format has been set to W3C and not IIS or NCSA. In both of those instances, the log files have no header.

If your log files are in W3C format, the log filenames will begin with u_ex by default. For IIS format the prefix is u_in and for NCSA the prefix is u_nc

IIS Log file Configuration

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