Fixing “Event log service is unavailable” on Windows 2008

Out of nowhere one of our servers wouldn’t show its event log anymore.

It simply popped up with this error: “Event log service is unavailable. Verify that the service is running.”

So I started by checking the service “Windows Event Log”, and sure enough – it wasn’t running. It was however set to automatically start, so I tried starting it manually.

This in turn popped this error: “Windows could not start the windows event log service on local computer.
Error 2 – Cannot not find the file specified”

A bit of googling found a simple solution:

Open regedit, and go to “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog”
Here you’ll find a key called “Parameters” – delete this and the service should be able to startup.

NOTE: When dealing with the registry database, it’s wise to make a backup before changing anything!