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Option for Terminal to log to Event Viewer (or a logfile in user's homedir) its own process creation+cmdline args (and maybe other useful event types) #20086

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opened 2026-01-31 07:03:01 +00:00 by claunia · 5 comments
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:01 +00:00
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Originally created by @vadimkantorov on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023).

Orignally discussed at https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/15001#issuecomment-1565649833

Currently it's not easy to discover what are the Terminals / cmd.exe / conhosts (given that in modern Windows, Terminal subsumed cmd.exe) that are executed by Windows as part of start-up / logon.

Windows Home does not have Group Policy editor and then it's complex to figure out how to filter the correct events for regular users (not Windows system admins)

I propose to have options for proper logging (of cmd.exe / conhost / terminal launch command line arguments and maybe some other events) to Event Viewer or even a text file in user's homedir. Windows PowerShell apparently does have a special topic and logs to Event Viewer (although not many event types are logged there), and Terminal could have its own topic too.

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Originally created by @vadimkantorov on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023). Orignally discussed at https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/15001#issuecomment-1565649833 Currently it's not easy to discover what are the Terminals / cmd.exe / conhosts (given that in modern Windows, Terminal subsumed cmd.exe) that are executed by Windows as part of start-up / logon. Windows Home does not have Group Policy editor and then it's complex to figure out how to filter the correct events for regular users (not Windows system admins) I propose to have options for proper logging (of cmd.exe / conhost / terminal launch command line arguments and maybe some other events) to Event Viewer or even a text file in user's homedir. `Windows PowerShell` apparently does have a special topic and logs to Event Viewer (although not many event types are logged there), and Terminal could have its own topic too. <img width="238" alt="image" src="https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/assets/1041752/2dc41ee7-be08-4e13-930a-65b1b39c03c6">
claunia added the Issue-FeatureProduct-TerminalArea-ServerResolution-Won't-Fix labels 2026-01-31 07:03:02 +00:00
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:03 +00:00
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@zadjii-msft commented on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023):

I think we actually already tracelog this:

a38388615e/src/cascadia/TerminalConnection/ConptyConnection.cpp (L363-L376)

which is probably lower overhead than event viewer

@zadjii-msft commented on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023): I think we actually already tracelog this: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/a38388615e299658072f906578acd60e976fe787/src/cascadia/TerminalConnection/ConptyConnection.cpp#L363-L376 which is probably lower overhead than event viewer
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:04 +00:00
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@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023):

I guess for this to be useful for the enduser, there should be a way for this to apply to all Terminals produced by cmd.exe spun up as part of Windows logon; this should probably write to a user's homedir + there should be an event including the command line arguments.

Writing to a file would solve my original problems, although an option for also sending these traces to ETW might still be useful for people accustomed to Windows ETW - I have no serious opinion about it

@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Jun 15, 2023): I guess for this to be useful for the enduser, there should be a way for this to apply to all Terminals produced by cmd.exe spun up as part of Windows logon; this should probably write to a user's homedir + there should be an event including the command line arguments. Writing to a file would solve my original problems, although an option for also sending these traces to ETW might still be useful for people accustomed to Windows ETW - I have no serious opinion about it
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:04 +00:00
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@DHowett commented on GitHub (Jul 19, 2023):

Thanks again for the request!

We met as a team and discussed the merits of offering an alternative channel for logging console application spawning. On the balance, how niche of a request it is didn't justify the risk--to maintainability, to code size, to attack surface--or the engineering time given that there's a mostly serviceable solution already.

TL;DR: I'm rejecting it. That doesn't mean we should stop talking about it!

The event log is by no means perfect, but that config option works on every version of Windows that's in active support (even where Terminal doesn't run!) and produces enough information to diagnose errant console windows.

Technical notes

  • When Terminal is launched on behalf of a console application, it does not receive a copy of that application's commandline.
    • The console application spawns first, and then a Terminal window is provided to it. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as saying "wt was started with foo.exe bar baz as arguments" -- foo.exe already has a process handle and everything! It was running before we were!
    • Terminal may not have the rights to that process handle, and we would like to avoid putting more invasive cross-process stuff into the startup path.
  • Emitting a log file to your home directory under contention (multiple Terminals spawning at once, as is quite common during enterprise managed login scripts) gets us into all the trouble of IPC coordination without many of the nice platform affordances for making it safe
  • Writing to the event log is a choice of last resort; further, I believe (?) that registering a new event log requires admin rights. PowerShell gets by by having an installer; we don't have that luxury unfortunately.

Applicability notes

Any way we could slice it, logging all console process creation is a power user feature rare even among power user features. The existing solutions (event log, etw) aren't perfect, but they're a heck of a lot better than where we were 15 years ago. I'd rather focus our engineering time on things that will impact the broadest set of our userbase 😄

@DHowett commented on GitHub (Jul 19, 2023): Thanks again for the request! We met as a team and discussed the merits of offering an alternative channel for logging console application spawning. On the balance, how niche of a request it is didn't justify the risk--to maintainability, to code size, to attack surface--or the engineering time given that there's a mostly serviceable solution already. **TL;DR**: I'm rejecting it. _That doesn't mean we should stop talking about it_! --- The event log is by no means perfect, but that config option works on every version of Windows that's in active support (even where Terminal doesn't run!) and produces enough information to diagnose errant console windows. ## Technical notes - When Terminal is launched on behalf of a console application, it does not receive a copy of that application's commandline. - The console application spawns _first,_ and then a Terminal window is provided to it. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as saying "wt was started with `foo.exe bar baz` as arguments" -- `foo.exe` already has a process handle and everything! It was running before we were! - Terminal may not have the rights to that process handle, and we would like to avoid putting more invasive cross-process stuff into the startup path. - Emitting a log file to your home directory under contention (multiple Terminals spawning at once, as is quite common during enterprise managed login scripts) gets us into all the trouble of IPC coordination without many of the nice platform affordances for making it safe - Writing to the event log is a choice of last resort; further, I believe (?) that registering a new event log requires admin rights. PowerShell gets by by having an installer; we don't have that luxury unfortunately. ## Applicability notes Any way we could slice it, logging all console process creation is a power user feature rare even _among power user features_. The existing solutions (event log, etw) aren't perfect, but they're a heck of a lot better than where we were 15 years ago. I'd rather focus our engineering time on things that will impact the broadest set of our userbase :smile:
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:04 +00:00
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@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Jul 19, 2023):

but they're a heck of a lot better than where we were 15 years ago

I must say, I could not find how to do filtering and so Event Viewer failed with me. I very humbly ask you to ask internal experts to produce a tutorial / video showing end-to-end how to do this audit / filtering on the example of .cmd startup scripts and to even make sure that Terminal audit to event viewer is working - I'm not even sure that Group Policy had any effect on my Windows 11 Home as I could not find any events related to the Terminal in the general log. And even you yourself don't know how to achieve this :)

For the standard cmd.exe triggering Terminal, would Terminal have rights to the handle? If yes, at least it would be sufficient to have a logging option if it does have the permissions. If not - it could just log insufficient permissions?

Regarding IPC, an option could be to log to different files like ~/.terminal/terminal.log.YYYYMMDD.PID this would avoid any contention, right?

Regarding the ETW topic, should this be somehow elevated to the Windows team? This seems a quite generic problem, and maybe they have thought of a solution? Maybe Terminal could write to the Application topic?

@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Jul 19, 2023): > but they're a heck of a lot better than where we were 15 years ago I must say, I could not find how to do filtering and so Event Viewer failed with me. I very humbly ask you to ask internal experts to produce a tutorial / video showing end-to-end how to do this audit / filtering on the example of `.cmd` startup scripts and to even make sure that Terminal audit to event viewer is working - I'm not even sure that Group Policy had any effect on my Windows 11 Home as I could not find any events related to the Terminal in the general log. And even you yourself don't know how to achieve this :) <hr> For the standard `cmd.exe` triggering Terminal, would Terminal have rights to the handle? If yes, at least it would be sufficient to have a logging option if it does have the permissions. If not - it could just log insufficient permissions? Regarding IPC, an option could be to log to different files like `~/.terminal/terminal.log.YYYYMMDD.PID` this would avoid any contention, right? Regarding the ETW topic, should this be somehow elevated to the Windows team? This seems a quite generic problem, and maybe they have thought of a solution? Maybe Terminal could write to the `Application` topic?
claunia commented 2026-01-31 07:03:05 +00:00
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@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Oct 6, 2025):

Or maybe Windows could create an event topic for Terminal by itself? I.e. not have it created as part of installer, but as part of Windows / Windows update (given that Terminal is a quite core app). If it's empty and no Terminal app is present on a given system, it would likely not be hurting anyone likewise

@vadimkantorov commented on GitHub (Oct 6, 2025): Or maybe Windows could create an event topic for Terminal by itself? I.e. not have it created as part of installer, but as part of Windows / Windows update (given that Terminal is a quite core app). If it's empty and no Terminal app is present on a given system, it would likely not be hurting anyone likewise
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Reference: starred/terminal#20086
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