This article contains various ways you can log the output from a script to a machine or file.
Processes
Save Terminal Output to a file
“The Start-Transcript cmdlet creates a record of all or part of a PowerShell session to a text file. The transcript includes all commands that the user types and all output that appears on the console.”
— https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.host/start-transcript
Place the following command at the beginning of your script or the batch of commands you will be running:
Start-Transcript -Path c:\temp\output.log -AppendRemove -Append if you want the file replaced each time
Then place this command at the end of your script or batch of commands
Stop-TranscriptSave Details to Event Viewer
Create a Log Source
First, you need to create a new log source. You should only have to run this once per machine, per source name.
New-EventLog -LogName "System" -Source "Script" -ErrorAction "SilentlyContinue"First, you will want to change -LogName to the Event Log you want the logs saved to. The defaults are “Application”, “Security”, “Setup”, and “System”. Alternatively, you can create a new log, which can be found in Event Viewer under “Applications and Services Logs”.
Second, you define the -Source for your logs. This must be a unique string across all the system’s Event Logs.
Write Logs
Now that we have a source established for our logs, we want to send entries to Event Viewer:
$EventID = 1234
$message = "This is the message we are logging."
Write-EventLog -LogName "System" -Source "Script" -EntryType "Information" -EventId $EventID -Message $message- First, we tell it the log name and source we previously set.
- Second, we tell it what type of entry it is (See the Options here).
- Next, we put in the Event ID, which helps with filtering in Event Viewer and can be used to help the end user with researching errors for more info.
- Then, finally, we tell it what the actual log message is