pfirewall.log deletion? Quick question...

Trying to solve a missing .log file on Win10.

Q - Does Health Check auto-clean the Windows Firewall log (logs/pfirewall.log) ?

Thanks

According to Windows Firewall (in Win10 Home) the log is supposed to reside at "C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Firewall\pfirewall.log" however the full path doesn't exist on my system and neither does the log itself. After looking in Windows Firewall it's seems that logging is disabled by default, and I don't see any way to enable it.

Unlikely that CCleaner could delete the log because the log would be locked and in-use by Windows Firewall. Also to further back up that claim CCleaner doesn't schedule things to be deleted on reboot so it wouldn't be able to delete that log if it existed and was in-use.

How to enable firewall logging

https://www.howtogeek.com/220204/how-to-track-firewall-activity-with-the-windows-firewall-log/

Hi, thanks for the replies.

So looks like its not CCleaner removing it then. Just wondered, as its a .log file, if Health Check might remove it. Mystery continues!

Thanks Hazelnut, firewall logging is showing as active on all profiles. Was previously able to get to the file but its disappeared, so was trying to figure out why!

Don't know how long its been gone as I don't go there very often. Only discovered it missing yesterday.

Thanks for your help :)

iansn

If you did any recent major Windows Updates "perhaps that's the culprit," because some are known to set things back to defaults -- it's one of the reasons the Privacy section in Settings has to be re-checked too.

If you were messing around with any other of the settings "it could possibly set things back to defaults," I know Windows Defender can and will do that if something is disabled such as Cloud-Delivered Protection.

Yes, there was some Windows Defender activity recently re updates. Must have been that.

I did have to go in and disable/re-enable firewall logging to get it going again. Worth remembering that. (And thanks for reminding me to check prefs and privacy settings!)

Can confirm it was not CCleaner - checked that today. Its still there and still logging after running Health Check.

thanks, iansn