CMTrace Configuration Manager: Installing It with the Client

CMTrace Now Ships With the Configuration Manager Client

CMTrace — the go-to tool for reading Configuration Manager and MDT log files, thanks to its colour-coded error/warning highlighting and live tail-following — used to be something admins had to manually copy onto end-user machines themselves, often via a batch file dropped in during OSD. The good news is Microsoft has since bundled CMTrace directly into the Configuration Manager client installation itself, so on any machine with an up-to-date client installed, you’ll already find it at:

%windir%\CCM\CMTrace.exe

Run it directly from there, or right-click any Configuration Manager or MDT log file and set CMTrace as your default handler for .log files so it opens automatically whenever you double-click one — much faster than browsing to the executable every time you need to check a log during troubleshooting. If you’re supporting older clients that predate this change, you’ll still need to deploy CMTrace separately (it’s part of the Configuration Manager toolkit), but for any reasonably current client version, it’s already sitting there waiting for you.

OneTrace: Microsoft’s Current Recommended Successor (Updated for 2026)

CMTrace itself is still bundled and still works exactly as described above, but it’s worth knowing that Microsoft’s current documentation no longer positions it as the go-forward tool. OneTrace — the log viewer built into Support Center — is now the tool Microsoft actively promotes, described in their own docs as working “similarly to CMTrace, with improvements.” If you’re setting up a fresh admin toolkit in 2026, it’s worth installing Support Center and trying OneTrace alongside CMTrace; CMTrace isn’t going anywhere in the near term and remains perfectly usable, but OneTrace is where the ongoing feature work is happening.