How to view Windows Event Log remotely with limited privileges

windows-server-2003 event-log
Frank Schwieterman picture Frank Schwieterman · Jan 6, 2009 · Viewed 28.7k times · Source

To debug some code, I would like to view the Windows event log of a remote machine (target is Windows2003). With mmc.exe I can add the event log for a remote machine, but only if I have sufficient permissions. For this remote machine, they do not want to give me permissions to log in remotely (or admin privileges for that matter). Is there a specific permission I can be given to view the event log and not much else?

Answer

oefe picture oefe · Jun 8, 2016

On newer Windows versions (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008...) you can simply add the corresponding account to the built-in group Event Log Readers.

Source: Jane Lewis's Weblog on TechNet, Giving Non Administrators permission to read Event Logs Windows 2003 and Windows 2008

This source also describes an alternative if you need more fine-grained control.

(The OP asked for Windows 2003, where this method doesn't work, but as Windows Server 2003 is no longer supported, people might be interested in this method.)

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