In Windows operating system, such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows Server operating system such as Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, or their later versions, you have to click on Start button, then Control Panel, then subsequently Administrative Tools before you can access Event Viewer, or type in “Event Viewer” in the instant search box. Both ways involves plenty of clicks or keystrokes.

Here’s the trick to add a new menu item “Event Viewer” to the context menu that appears when you right click on “This PC” or “Computer” or “My Computer” in navigation pane of Windows Explorer or File Explorer.

Download eventviewer.zip with eventviewer.reg, unpack and then double click on it to merge the registry key to the Windows registry. You may need to grant permission to UAC prompt when executing the registry registration file.

After that, you can simply right click on My Computer (in Windows XP), or Computer (in Windows Vista and Windows 7) or This PC (in Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10) and click on “Event Viewer” to open it directly.

Alternatively, open Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Event Viewer\command

If you cannot find “Event Viewer” and “command” registry key, create new registry key. Then modify the default value data inside “command” registry key to “eventvwr” (without quotes).

You can also copy and paste the following text to a text editor (Notepad) and save the file with a .reg extension. Then a double click will merge the data into registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Event Viewer\command]
@="eventvwr"