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WindowsXP logfile

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by ahendric

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I am currently evaluating windows xp pro and I have run into a strange
problem, whenever a user logs into the workstation, a process begins to
write a log file that consumes all of the available space on the system
partition. The log file resides in the following location
\windows\system32\logfiles\WMI\trace.log. After twenty minutes of regular
user activity the log file has consumed 250mb of space. I was able to get
tracelog from the Resource Kit to stop this file from growing but I don't
want to run this everytime a user logs in just to prevent this behavior.On a
side note this file has been able to grow up to 1.06gb and when this happens
the system file cannot save itself at shutdown and then you must boot to the
repair console to overwrite the corrupted system file.

1 reply

by timwalsh

Trace logs are not created as part of a default setup of WinXP.

Open up the trace log and see what events are being logged. This might help to determine what process is creating the file.

I can only think of a couple of things that may be causing what you are seeing:

1. Computer Management MMC | Services and Applications | WMI Control | Properties - Logging level was changed to verbose and the log path was changed.

2. You installed the WMI SNMP Provider, which might automatically create a trace log. A Trace log will not be created without a Provider being installed.

The second possibility is probably the more likely. Unless you explicitly need SNMP, I would remove (or disable) this component.

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