Scheduled Tasks History Retention settings
Archived: 2026-04-05 12:54:28 UTC
Question
Monday, November 2, 2015 3:03 PM
Hello,
I am currently only able to view the History for my Scheduled Tasks going back only 1 day on Windows Server
2012 R2.
Is there a way to increase this to at least 7 days?
I have noticed that on Windows Server 2008 R2 the History seems to at least go back 3 days.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated!
Kind regards,
Daniel
Tuesday, November 3, 2015 8:05 AM ✅Answered | 3 votes
Hi Daniel,
I believe you need to increase the below eventlog's Properties to retain more logs.
History pulls eventID 140 from here. A task's history is tracked by events in the Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler event log.
Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational
Set Log Retention Policy - TechNet - Microsoft - Default is 10MB of data, if you run lots of schtsk then it needs to
be increased.
Regards,
Satyajit
Please“Vote As Helpful” if you find my contribution useful or “MarkAs Answer” if it does answer your question.
That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015 3:05 PM
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5bca729-52e7-4fcb-ba12-3225c564674c/scheduled-tasks-history-retention-settings?forum=winserver8gen
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Great thank you Satyajit!
The current value was 1MB for my system so I have increased this to 1GB to see how many days of History this
will give me. 
I take it there is no way to set the logs to clear after 7 days instead of having them clear based on the log file size?
Kind regards,
Daniel
Wednesday, November 4, 2015 10:37 AM
Hi Daniel,
The options vary log to log basis, for this one, you need to do it using size. Keep track for few weeks and you
would know the exact size required to keep 7days data.
Your 1MB setting would mean, someone is worried on the disk space, so be careful, you should start small, make
it 100MB and see how much it retains. 
Regards,
Satyajit
Please “Vote As Helpful” if you find my contribution useful or “Mark As Answer” if it does answer your question.
That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.
Monday, September 23, 2019 12:58 PM
Hi Daniel,
I believe you need to increase the below eventlog's Properties to retain more logs.
History pulls eventID 140 from here. A task's history is tracked by events in the Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler event log.
Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational
Set Log Retention Policy - TechNet - Microsoft - Default is 10MB of data, if you run lots of schtsk then
it needs to be increased.
Regards,
Satyajit
Please“Vote As Helpful” if you find my contribution useful or “MarkAs Answer” if it does answer your
question. That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5bca729-52e7-4fcb-ba12-3225c564674c/scheduled-tasks-history-retention-settings?forum=winserver8gen
Page 2 of 3

So can you or anyone here actually provide the steps to view/change the log file size?
The link you provided is broken.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 2:58 PM
In WIN10 (and Server2012) this is a property of the event log. 
First open the event viewer..
Applications and Services Logs/ Microsoft/ Windows / TaskScheduler
There you can pick Maintenance or Operational - Properties.. Extend the size of the log file. (operational is 10MB
by default)
Source: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5bca729-52e7-4fcb-ba12-3225c564674c/scheduled-tasks-history-retention-setting
s?forum=winserver8gen
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5bca729-52e7-4fcb-ba12-3225c564674c/scheduled-tasks-history-retention-settings?forum=winserver8gen
Page 3 of 3