Event Description

The format and contents of the event description vary, depending on the event type. The description is often the most useful piece of information, indicating what happened or the significance of the event.

Event Types

The symbol on the left side of the Event Viewer screen indicates the event type:

Symbol	Event Type	Meaning

	Error	Significant problems, such as a loss of data or loss of functions. For example, an Error event might be logged if a service was not loaded during Windows NT Workstation startup.
	Warning	Events that are not necessarily significant but that indicate possible future problems. For example, a Warning event might be logged when disk space is low.
	Information	Infrequent significant events that describe successful operations of major server services. For example, when a database program loads successfully, it might log an Information event.
	Success Audit	Audited security access attempts that were successful. For example, a user's successful attempt to log on to the system might be logged as a Success Audit event.
	Failure Audit	Audited security access attempts that failed. For example, if a user tried to access a network drive and failed, the attempt might be logged as a Failure Audit event.