C# – How to create a custom event log using C#

cevent-lognetwindows-services

I created a Windows service. I create an event log.

public Service1()
{
        InitializeComponent();
        this.ServiceName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("ServiceName");

        string sourceName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("ServiceName");
        string logName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["EventLogName"];
        try
        {
            if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.Exists(sourceName))
                System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(sourceName, logName);
            eventLog.Source = sourceName;
            eventLog.Log = logName;
        }
        catch
        {
            eventLog.Source = "Application";
        }
    }

During initialization, the service is installed and log is not created. The log entries are in the Application log of the system.

What did I miss?

I used process installer to installation

 public ProjectInstaller()
 {
        InitializeComponent();
        this.Installers.Add(GetServiceInstaller());
        this.Installers.Add(GetServiceProcessInstaller());
 }

 private ServiceInstaller GetServiceInstaller()
 {
        serviceInstaller.ServiceName = GetConfigurationValue("ServiceName");
        serviceInstaller.Description = GetConfigurationValue("Description");
        serviceInstaller.StartType = System.ServiceProcess.ServiceStartMode.Automatic;
        return serviceInstaller;
 }

 private ServiceProcessInstaller GetServiceProcessInstaller()
 {
        serviceProcessinstaller.Account = ServiceAccount.LocalSystem;
        return serviceProcessinstaller;
 }

How to create event log?

Best Answer

change your code to following:

if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists(source: sourceName))
{
    System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(source: sourceName, logName: logName);
}

Note that as per Microsoft's KB, the first 8 characters of the Event Log name must be distinct from all other Event Logs on the computer (so if the user's computer already has a log named "Application" then you cannot create a new EventLog named "Applicat1" or "ApplicationFoobar" as they share the same 8 characters as the built-in Application event-log).

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