Logging Azure startup tasks

This is one of the old DOS batch file tricks.  Really simple, really useful, and still works after 20+ years.

When you need to send the output of a script to a file:

>> pathToMyLog\Mylog.log

IN the case of Azure startup tasks and you want a quick way to see what happened, what is happening simply define this in the startup task.

<Startup>
  <Task commandLine="DSInstall\InstallDS.cmd >> %Public%\Documents\StartupTask.log" executionContext="elevated" />
</Startup>

The important thin got remember is that this will always append a previous file.  So if the script runs multiple times, you will have the entries repeat.  And this is also useful.

Most developers I would with would simply be looking at me and say:  Just turn on Intellitrace, support is right there.  Well, that is fine – I will let them do that.  But yet, I bet they find this useful. 

There is also the final end tag of “2>>&1” that can be used to be sure that error messages are logged (as the “>>” takes all of the console output and logs it to file).