A log that contains events written by Active Directory on machines running Microsoft Windows 2000. The directory service log exists only on domain controllers because these are the only computers that have copies of Active Directory.
The directory service log contains events such as informational, warning, and error events concerning operations that have been performed on or by Active Directory. These events reveal the state of Active Directory and can be used for diagnostic and troubleshooting purposes.
Information in the directory service log can be displayed using Event Viewer, a Windows 2000 administrative tool that runs as a snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).
Event Viewer for Windows 2000 supports a number of different kinds of logs in addition to the three supported in the Windows NT version of Event Viewer, namely the system log, security log, and application log. The actual types of event logs available in Windows 2000 Event Viewer depend on which optional networking components are installed on the machine.