[SOLVED] How do I write a Windows 10 script to increment a counter by 1 each time a print job prints?

Issue

I'd like to write a script for Windows 10 to add 1 to a count in a .txt each time a print job completes. Ideally a separate count for each day, so I can see how many print jobs were completed in a day.

Any help in understanding how to go about this is appreciated!

Solution

The print service already logs every time it prints - you just need to enable the appropriate event log channel and consume the resulting log events:

# Enable the Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Operational log channel
wevtutil.exe set-log Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Operational /enabled:true

Now that the log channel is enabled, the print service will log an event with event ID 307 everytime it executes a local print job. Since the log events all have timestamps, getting a count per day is as simple as using the Group-Object cmdlet:

# Fetch the print job events from the event log
$printJobEvents = Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{ LogName='Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Operational'; EventId=307 } 

# Group by date logged, to get a count-per-day
$printJobEvents |Group-Object { '{0:yyyy-MM-dd}' -f  $_.TimeCreated.Date } -NoElement |Sort-Object Name

Answered By - Mathias R. Jessen

Answer Checked By - Timothy Miller (WPSolving Admin)