Use Notepad to Create Log Files

Notepad is a simple fast text editor which comes bundled with Windows for free. If you are like me, you probably use it so often for cut and paste techniques, that you use it in the quick launch bar. I today stumbled upon this cool way to use Notepad to create log files.

After you open Notepad, follow instructions of this Microsoft support article -

Type .LOG on the first line, and then press ENTER to move to the next line.

On the File menu, click Save As, type a descriptive name for your file in the File name box, and then click OK.

When you next open the file, note that the date and time have been appended to the end of the log, immediately preceding the place where new text can be added. You can use this functionality to automatically add the current date and time to each log entry.

Although the article says it works for Windows 98 and Millenium, I tried it on Windows XP where it works well. Remember to type .LOG and not .log (it is case sensitive as I discovered when it did not work). Try it out and enjoy this simple technique to create a Log file using Notepad in Microsoft Windows.

I found this trick at Hirlpoo West.