In Central Administration > Operations > Logging and Reporting, you have the ability to set the Event Log and Trace Logging levels. In case you didn't know, you must click OK at the bottom of the page for EVERY category and level combination. You cannot go through all of them, configure each, and then click OK. So, this is a very time consuming process (hours) if you follow best practice and set every level. Additionally, if you ever set Category=ALL, and change a level, it will overwrite all of your previous settings. You also cannot set the levels for items such as Indexer Plug-ins from the GUI interface...
So, there has to be a better way, right? Yes! Use stsadm.exe.
First, you can run stsadm.exe -o listlogginglevels (optionally, you can use the -showhidden parameter to show items like the Indexer Plug-in)
This will list all of your current levels for reference and future use. You can append a >filename.txt to the end of the command to capture it to a text file.
When you are ready to change logging levels en masse, you use stsadm.exe -o setlogginglevel -category -tracelevel -windowslogginglevel
Simply create a line in a batch file for every level you want to modify. If the service has spaces, like the Forms Services Administration category, you must surround the category with parenthesis. While this whole command line process is time consuming, it only needs to be done once. This file can then be reused in multiple farms, or in the same farm when performing Disaster Recovery (you do have a DR plan to add it to, don't you?).
Ok, Ok, if you must do it all on one line, you can add multiple categories on one line, seperated by a semi-colon. For example, stsadm.exe -o setlogginglevel -category e-mail;”Forms Services Administration” -tracelevel unexpected -windowslogginglevel error
This example changed e-mail and Forms Services Administration simultaneously. All categories given in a single line must use the same trace/log levels, however.
Thanks to JD Wade from Mindsharp's Las Vegas summit for finding the commands.
Ben Curry
Mindsharp