Convert Microsoft ISA 2006 MSDE logs to WebSpy compatible text logs

Some customers have experienced issues converting their ISA MSDE logs to text using Microsoft’s MSDEToText.vbs script for ISA 2006 (available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=23531736-942f-466c-acb3-861a899d37b4&displaylang=en)

If you convert your logs to text using this script, they won’t import into WebSpy Vantage or Analyzer due to an extra line break in the header of the file (after #fields:).

We’ve therefore created a modified version of the script that creates compatible log files for WebSpy software.

Download the modified MSDEToText script:
MSDEToText.zip -26 KB

Also make sure the file names of your output log files contain the word WEB (for Web Proxy logs) or FWS (for Firewall Logs) as Analyzer and Vantage use these strings to automatically detect the type of ISA log file.

Happy converting!

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2 Comments

  1. Douglas Filipe September 6, 2010 at 7:17 pm - Reply

    Hi Everyone,
    This script not work for me. When I run command “MSDEToText.vbs ISALOG_20100906_WEB_000.w3c WebProxyLog %Date%WEB.log” the error is show:
    Script: %path%
    Line: 65
    Char: 5
    Error: [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen(Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.
    Code: 80004005
    Source: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server

    • Scott September 7, 2010 at 7:30 am - Reply

      Hi Douglas. Thanks for your comment. Do you have SQL Management Studio available? If so, use it to try connecting to the ISA Server database’s MSFW instance (for example .MSFW or (local)MSFW). If the connection is successful, make sure you use the same server name in the MSDEToText script. For example:
      cn.Properties(“Data Source”).Value = “.msfw”

      If the connection is not successful, you need to troubleshoot the permissions. Are you logged in with an account with local administrative privileges? Use SQL Management Studio to ensure your account has full access to the MSFW database instance. Can you also try running the script as administrator by right-clicking the script file and selecting ‘Run as administrator’?

      Let me know how you go.
      Cheers!
      Scott.

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