CertiGuide to A+ (A+ 4 Real)  9  Chapter 1: What are Operating Systems and How Do They Work?       9  System Configuration Tools            9  The Event Viewer

Error Events 1 The System Information Tool

Clicking the security log in the left hand pane will probably show that no events have been logged into this log file. Why? The simple (and rather odd) reason is that Microsoft does not turn on security event logging by default. Therefore, if you need to know who is logging onto a machine and what actions they are taking, you need to enable security logging first. You do this by editing the local security policy.

To access the local security policy, navigate to Control Panel, double click the “Administrative Tools” applet (this is actually another special shortcut, as discussed previously), and double click the “Local Security Settings” item A window similar to Figure 112 will appear.

Policies are a large and complex topic, and a favorite Microsoft exam subject. CompTIA does not mention them in the A+ objectives directly, so being aware of their existence and potential use is sufficient for exam preparation.

To enable security logging, expand the “Local Policies” folder by clicking the + symbol next to it and click on the “Audit Policy” folder that appears. The right hand pane of the MMC console will be filled out with available options.

These options control the events logged to the security event log. By default they are set to “No auditing”, which is the reason for the empty security log. To enable auditing on any of the options, simply double click the item in the right hand pane you wish to change. For example, to have all account management events logged (such as the creation, deletion and assignment of rights to user accounts), double click the “Audit account management” item.

Select whether you wish to audit successful account changes, failures or both, and click “OK”. You are returned to the policy editor console, and your new policy settings take effect immediately.

Error Events 1 The System Information Tool