How to Retrieve the Full Event ID Message Details with Get-WinEvent in PowerShell

Discover how to expand the message property in PowerShell's Get-WinEvent command to get complete details from truncated messages.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/63915839/ asked by the user 'Senior Systems Engineer' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/453544/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/63917333/ provided by the user 'LosFla' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13535885/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Get-WinEvent - Expand Property $_.Message to get full message details?

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/licensing
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
How to Retrieve the Full Event ID Message Details with Get-WinEvent in PowerShell

When working with event logs in Windows, particularly when using PowerShell's Get-WinEvent, you may encounter a common issue: the message details of events seem to be truncated. This can be frustrating, especially if you're relying on this data for troubleshooting or analysis. In this guide, we will explore how to retrieve the full event message details by expanding the message property correctly.

Understanding the Problem

When you attempt to read the event logs using a command like:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

You might notice that the property $_.Message does not display the entire message. This happens because the output can be truncated if not handled properly.

Why It Matters

For system administrators and IT professionals, having full visibility of event messages is crucial. Missing detailed messages can lead to unnecessary debugging time or, worse, overlooking critical issues in your environment.

The Solution

To access the complete message details, we can modify the command to effectively expand the property. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this.

Step 1: Define Your EventFilter

You need to ensure you have your EventFilter properly defined. This serves to filter the events you want based on criteria such as the log name, event IDs, and the start time.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Using Get-WinEvent

You will invoke Get-WinEvent using the defined filter. This retrieves the events that meet your criteria.

Step 3: Expand the Message Property

Here comes the crucial part. To get the full detailed messages, you will use Select-Object combined with -ExpandProperty. Below is how you can structure the command:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Breakdown of the Command

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashTable $EventFilter: This filters the events according to your specified criteria.

Select-Object -Property TimeCreated, Id: Here, you are selecting the necessary properties - creation time and ID of the events.

@ {N='Detailed Message'; E={$_.Message}}: This creates a new calculated property named Detailed Message which includes the full message content.

Sort-Object -Property TimeCreated: This organizes the output based on the time the events occurred.

Select-Object -ExpandProperty 'Detailed Message': Finally, this extracts only the full detailed messages from the result.

Conclusion

Using PowerShell's Get-WinEvent is a powerful way to interact with Windows event logs. By correctly expanding the message property, you can ensure that you’re seeing all the details you need. This little adjustment can save you a lot of time and effort in troubleshooting events down the line.

Next time you run into truncated messages, simply follow this guide to retrieve the full details, ensuring no critical information slips through the cracks.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or additional tips on handling PowerShell event logs!

Видео How to Retrieve the Full Event ID Message Details with Get-WinEvent in PowerShell канала vlogize