Most Event Viewer errors are normal, and you probably shouldn't be looking at them in the first place

Whenever you run into problems with Windows 11, it's usually time to start diving into all the possible causes. One of the ways to do that, and one we've recommended quite often here at XDA, is to use Event Viewer to find possible errors that led to a crash or blue screen.

But digging through Event Viewer can be a scary experience. Not because it's confusing or complicated necessarily, but because it will show you a lot of errors that will make you think something is wrong, even if your PC is functioning exactly as expected.

Event Viewer errors have tiers

They're not all the same

When you open Event Viewer, you'll see a long list of messages with a few different types, mostly falling under Information, Warning, Error, or Critical categories. Information messages are the ones you'll most likely overlook, especially as they're also the most frequent type of message and just indicate that a specific thing has happened on the system. It usually means that the task was completed successfully.

You might be tempted to pour over all the other kinds of messages, but generally, there's not much of a reason to. With warning messages, they usually just indicate that a configuration or program could cause an error at some point, or that some configuration should be changed or checked for safety. Most of the time, there's nothing you really need or want to change.

Even the error messages don't necessarily have to mean anything big. Event Viewer logs pretty much everything that's happening on your computer — every attempt to connect to a service or the internet, or to load a file or program. A lot of the time, these things can fil on a first attempt for any number of reasons, and then function exactly as expected on a subsequent attempt, all without it ever being brought up to you during normal use.

As of writing this, my laptop indicates there were 64 error messages and 108 warning messages in the last 24 hours, yet I've had no issues whatsoever. Of course, that's not to say Error messages are never important, but unless you're seeing an actual problem that ties into it. Failures and retries are natural parts of how your PC operates, and unless you know something is getting in the way of your work, there's no reason to lose sleep to peer through every error message in Event Viewer.

Critical errors are (usually) more important

You'll know when these happen

The one kind of message you probably shouldn't ignore when looking at Event Viewer is whatever falls under the Critical category, and the name is fairly self-explanatory. These errors indicate that the system encountered an error so severe that it caused a program or service to crash or close.

Many times, you'll see this error because your entire system crashed due to a Windows component failing, resulting in a blue screen of death. Whenever you see one of these screens, you can actually see an error message that tells you what to look for in Event Viewer, and that's where you can find more information about what actually caused it so you can find potential solutions.

Still, critical errors are also not always indicative of larger problems with your PC. Sometimes, your computer may simply shut down unexpectedly for reasons unrelated to the OS, and that would be marked as a Critical error because something caused the computer to shut down, but it wouldn't have to mean anything is wrong with the system. You can even cause one yourself by using a command such as taskkill /IM svchost.exe /f in your terminal (this will shut down your computer, so save your work beforehand).

It's a troubleshooting tool, not a maintenance system

Use it when you need it

The best way to look at it is that Event Viewer is more of a troubleshooting tool than a way to monitor your system regularly. You should look at the logs in Event Viewer when you're running into concrete problems. Going into Event Viewer and looking for the right timestamp and message can help you figure whether something is truly wrong with your system or not.

That could be because of a blue screen or application crash, but there are other application errors that could end up there, so it's always worth a look to see if you can spot the cause and eventually find a solution.

But if you're just doing a regular checkup to make sure everything is running as intended, there's no use in jumping the shark just because you see dozens of error messages in Event Viewer. Ultimately, it's there to help you diagnose a problem you already have, not to help you find new ones.

There may be better alternatives, too

Event Viewer makes things more stressful than they need to be

If you want to keep an eye on your PC's reliability and make sure things are running smoothly, there are other tools in Windows 11 that may do a better job of this than Event Viewer. One is Reliability Monitor, which organizes error and information messages more neatly into an overview that makes it easier to understand what's been happening on your PC. The information is essentially the same, but it's presented in a much clearer way.

Meanwhile, troubleshooting BSODs can be made easier with a program called BlueScreenView, which focuses just on the errors that caused blue screens and, again, provides a less daunting interface to look at them.

Otherwise, if you want to keep your system running smoothly, there are other places you might want to look to help improve performance or make sure you're not piling up unnecessary files and apps. Check Task Manager for unnecessary startup apps, look through your app list for anything you might not need anymore, and run malware checks somewhat regularly. I always recommend MalwareBytes as the best way to detect all kinds of malware, though there are other great options.