Windows 10 log info when starting

7

1

Is it possible to turn on log/debug info while starting Windows 10, instead if logo? Similar functionality exists in Linux, where I see steps and thier results.

While Windows is starting I only see rounding circle, I don't know what exacly it doing, install updates or just crushed?

Jacek

Posted 2016-10-29T18:48:30.150

Reputation: 203

Answers

8

Yes it is possible.

Enable Driver Status Logging

  1. Type msconfig.exe is the run dialog
  2. Go to the Boot tab
  3. There are 2 options here that interest you: Boot log and OS boot information.

Boot log - This creates a log file which list every driver that has been loaded. After reboot the log file will be on %SystemRoot%\ntbtlog.txt. Note that each time you reboot the computer the log is not overwritten, so it'll be good practice to disable this option after troubleshooting due to potentially long and big log file.

OS boot information - This option enable you to see which driver is loaded when is loaded. This can be useful if you're troubleshooting faulty driver or long boot process.

Enable Verbose Service Startup/Shutdown Messages

The aforementioned options are used to see which drivers are loaded. As you may know, after drivers are loaded successfully, Windows is starting various services. At this stage you're staring at the Logon Screen, while in the background the services are loaded.

In order to enable verbose service messages, you'll need to do some registry tweak:

  1. Open regedit.exe
  2. Navigate to this registry location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
  3. Right-click and choose new DWORD 32 bit
  4. Name this value "VerboseStatus" and give it 1 as the actual value.

You may find this useful if you're troubleshooting some problem.

kolxxx

Posted 2016-10-29T18:48:30.150

Reputation: 103

This is useful if the machine is properly booting. Assume you need to deal with machine which fails to boot, but you can mount it's disk in another computer. Is there some files I can use for diagnostics ? – Pavel Niedoba – 2018-10-11T22:01:57.870

2

@PavelNiedoba You can do it all using bcdedit, on drive mounted in another windows machine (select /Boot/BCD file from patient's EFI partition with /store switch): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/bcdedit--set e.g. bcdedit /store F:\Boot\BCD /set {default} bootlog Yes

– Dominik Szymański – 2018-11-13T22:51:00.450

The boot log in ntbtlog.txt is useful, but I am not sure which driver causes my system to occasionally freeze during boot time. The problem is that the order slightly varies from boot to boot. Is there perhaps a way to get a more detailed log, which lists drivers that begin to be loaded (as opposed to those that were already loaded or not loaded)? – Jake – 2019-07-03T19:36:52.847

Asked: 2016-10-29T18:48:30.150

Viewed: 16 338 times

Active: 2016-10-29T19:25:56.480