How to open log files in Hoo Wintail using command line arguments

Hoo Wintail supports monitoring of multiple log files at once by its implementation of tabs. This is very useful as you easily have multiple log files for an application. But opening all those files manually is not ideal because we don't like clicking too much at all. That's why I launch Hoo Wintail using the command line.

The command line syntax goes as follows:

Wintail.exe [filename1] [filename2] ... [filenameN]

Example:

Wintail.exe \\servername\folderX\file1.log \\servername\folderY\file2.log

If your log files are located on a server on the network, Windows might not be able to make a connection to the server without authentication, and so Hoo Wintail won't be either. You could manually connect to the server by typing \\servername in explorer and filling in the username and password for authentication. Or you could automatically authenticate at the server by using following statement:

net use "\\servername" /USER:username "password"

As we usually monitor the same log files or we easily want to open different sets of files, we create a .bat file containing above 2 statements. This way we don't have to type the commands each time. Your .bat file could look like this:

net use "\\servername" /USER:username "password"
Wintail.exe \\servername\folderX\folderY\file1.log \\servername\folderX\folderY\file2.log

Note that there's a space between the first file and the second file, there's no hard enter.

Before running the bat file you should make sure Wintail.exe is known to Windows by adding its location to your path variable. You can do this the following way:

• right click "my computer"
• select tab "advanced"
• click button "environment variables"
• select system variable "path"
• click the edit button and add the Wintail.exe location (which is usually C:\Program Files\HooTech\WinTail by default)
  

Right now the setup is complete. Create additional .bat files and launch any set of log files at a click.