View Your Windows Update Log

By Stephen Bucaro

Something stopped working? Could the problem have been caused by a Windows update? Sounds unlikely but the fact is things stop working on thousands of Windows PC's every day because of Windows updates. Even if you have automatic updates disabled, Windows doesn't always honor the disabled setting and updates your PC anyway. To determine if a Windows update may have caused your problem, view your update log to see if an update occurred between when that something last worked and now.

To view your Windows update log, click Start and in the Search text box type:

%windir%⁄Windowsupdate.log

in the search results double-click on the filename WindowsUpdate.log to open Windows Update Log in Notepad and scroll down to the bottom of the file.

If an update occurred between when that something last worked and now, execute a system restore. (fortunately Windows Update always creates a restore point before performing an update.)

To perform a system restore click Start and in the Search text box type: System Restore, and then, in the list of results, click System Restore. This should roll back any Windows system files and drivers that changed to a point before the update.

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