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Is there way have windows XP show me updates to a log file as they happen? I'm thinking of something similar to tail -f <file path> in the linux realm.

Mike B
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8 Answers8

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Using Windows Powershell, you can use Get-Content < filename > -wait

There's also a discussion of a Windows Server 2003 tools package that has a tail program which supports -f

DaveParillo
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I have had good luck with http://sourceforge.net/projects/tailforwin32/. It has some nice options for fonts, colors and keyword highlighting. Feels lightweight and fast to me.

steveschoon
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    Tail for win32 is a nice GUI application. Highlighting keywords can give you find -f file.txt | grep 'stuff' like functionality. – Justin Tanner Mar 24 '10 at 18:44
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Just use the tail program from the cygwin project. this is "just" a ported UN*X tail command.

Gerd Klima
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We currently use this http://www.baremetalsoft.com/wintail/

Holmes
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I use UnxUtils which are native win32 ports of common gnu utilities. Then I don't have to bother with cygwin.

Jason S
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0

You can checkout in'side log.

A Java tool I created, able to read local and distant log files using SSH. It is fairly simple to use.

Some more explanations: https://github.com/pschweitz/insidelog/wiki

Just download the version corresponding to your operating system, or the native jar release executable within your Java Runtime (requires java 8_40 or higher):

https://github.com/pschweitz/insidelog/releases

You can find a complete documentation (embedded with and in Github's page as well)

Philippe Schweitzer
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If you happen to have a version of git installed that comes with bash (for instance the one from https://git-scm.com), you can use the tail included with that.

rakslice
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I can recommend LogExpert an other alternatives

Rolf Kristensen
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