New Events and Errors Message Center on TechNet

Microsoft has recently published an "Events and Errors Message Center" on TechNet. It is a bit like EventId.net, but you can search on more fields than Event ID and Source (note that non-Microsoft products aren't included in the Microsoft offering).

The basic search allows for selection of a Microsoft product, and a search string. The advanced search adds a Version field for the selected product, an Event ID field, an Event Source field, a File name, and Language. The product list isn't yet all that comprehensive with only 18 entries (and some duplicates or products that could be further filtered by version), but I hope to see it grow to encompass more products and more versions (Vista is not listed yet, for example). It would also be cool if the capability to annotate specific events was made available to users, much like can be done at EventId.net. Another idea that would be nice to see is that as products are developed / maintained / updated, part of the process would involve documenting the events and their meaning, in the same database that the Events and Errors Message Center interfaces with. Perhaps QA and other groups could even add their own annotations to specific events - what caused the problem, how the problem was resolved, etc.

Hopefully, the Events and Errors Message Center keeps improving. Along similar lines, it would be nice to see the DLL Help Database get some attention - several times I have hoped to see Vista files appear but have been disappointed.

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