This article was written by using the MonitorWare Agent, but it can also be applied to EventReporter and WinSyslog.
By default the log files generated by MonitorWare Agent using the WriteFile Action are written on a daily basis, so you have one log file for each day. Over time this can become a huge number uncompressed log files, so you properly want to archive them automatically to save disk space. There is no inbuilt method in MonitorWare Agent yet to do so, but this article will describe how you can archive this goal by using the Windows Task Scheduler and WinRar.
- You can download the scripts needed for this article here, which you will need on your target system.
Table of Contents
1. Installing and Configuring MonitorWare Agent
1.1 Download and Install MonitorWare Agent
1.2 Setup up basic MonitorWare Agent configuration
1.3 Configure the Write File Action.
1.4 Start MonitorWare Agent
2. Configure log file archiving
2.1 Download and Install WinRar
2.2 Create VBScript which utilizes WinRar to create archives.
2.3 Create Task in Windows Task Scheduler
Final Thoughts
1. Installing and Configuring MonitorWare Agent
1.1 Download and Install MonitorWare Agent
So if you haven’t done so already, go to www.mwagent.com and download the latest MonitorWare Agent version. It is always recommended to use the latest Version of MonitorWare Agent. Once the download is done, go ahead and install it. You may have to restart after installation, this depends on your system. |
1.2 Setup up basic MonitorWare Agent configuration
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1.3 Configure the Write File Action.
![]() The log file name for 2008-11-28 would be MonitorWare-2008-11-28.log, and for the next day MonitorWare-2008-11-29.log and so on. |
1.4 Start MonitorWare Agent
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2 Configure log file archiving
2.1 Download and Install WinRar
![]() Once you downloaded WinRar, start it’s installation, and remember the exact path it was installed to. Usually this is “C:\Program Files\WinRAR” or “C:\Program Files (x86)\WinRAR”. |
2.2 Create a VBScript which utilizes WinRar to create the archives.
This script will actually do the work for you. It is designed to automatically generate the filename of the log file from yesterday, and create an archive with the same name. If the archive is successfully created, the log file will automatically be deleted. The script is also in the script package which you can download at the top. You can also copy the script content from the textbox below, and create a new file archive_logs.vbs yourself.
By default the script will create zip files, if you rather want to create rar files, just remove the -afzip parameter from the variable szCommand at the end of the script.
szWinRardirectory – contains the full installation of your WinRar installation Once you have done this, you should run the script at least once manually by double clicking it to see if it works. You may only notice a short popup of the WinRar Windows, depending if a log file to archive can be found, and archiving takes some time. If it works, you should see a zip-packed log file in your logs directory, like in this screenshot. |
2.3 Create Task in Windows Task Scheduler
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![]() In the next step you have to configure the Username and Password, the task is going to run under. Once you finished creating the scheduled task, right click it in the task list and select “Run” in order to test that the task is working.
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Final Thoughts
I hope this article will help you solving your tasks and shows you the potential of MonitorWare Agent, and what you can archive with it. Feel free to email me for recommendations or questions.