VPS - Enable Windows boot logs
Objective
Windows boot logs allow you to identify the drivers and services loaded during system startup.
They are particularly useful for diagnosing boot issues, blue screens, or system freezes.
This guide explains how to enable Windows boot logs on a server to help diagnose and troubleshoot VPS issues.
Requirements
- An active VPS offer in your OVHcloud Control Panel.
Instructions
Enabling Windows boot logs
To enable boot logs, follow the steps below:
Connect to your server via a remote desktop or a KVM session.
Open the Windows Start menu and click Run.

Type msconfig and click OK.

In the new window, enable the log option next to Boot log. Then click OK.

At the next server startup, the logs will be saved in a .txt file. The file path is: C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt.
To access the log file in rescue mode, follow the instructions in the guide "Enable and use rescue mode on a VPS".
Go further
Change the administrator password on a Windows server
How to recover access to the server if you lose the user password
Join our community of users.