← CMTrace Open

Why CMTrace Open Exists

If you’re an IT admin who’s ever opened a log file in Notepad, scrolled through thousands of lines looking for an error, then copy-pasted a hex code into Google, you already know the problem.

Microsoft’s CMTrace.exe has been the go-to log viewer for ConfigMgr and SCCM admins for over a decade. It does one thing: read CCM-format logs. And for a long time, that was enough.

But the world has moved on. Intune replaced SCCM for many organizations. Autopilot replaced imaging. MDM replaced Group Policy. The logs changed too. CBS, DISM, Panther, MSI verbose, PSADT, Burn, ReportingEvents, DHCP. CMTrace didn’t keep up.

Here’s what you’re stuck with today:

  • Windows-only. If you’re on a Mac managing Intune, CMTrace doesn’t run. Period.
  • Closed-source. No updates, no fixes, no community contributions.
  • One format. CCM logs only. Open a CBS.log or an MSI verbose log and you get raw, unstructured text.
  • No error lookup. You see 0x80070005 in a log and you still have to Google it.
  • No filtering. You can search, but you can’t filter to show only errors, only a specific component, or only a time range.

For admins managing modern endpoints, CMTrace.exe isn’t just outdated. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

It’s Not Just About Replacing CMTrace

The real problem isn’t CMTrace.exe itself. It’s the entire workflow around troubleshooting Windows logs.

Here’s what a typical investigation looks like today:

  1. Something fails in Intune. The portal says “Failed” with no useful detail.
  2. Wait for someone to collect logs or hope that diagnostics collection is working that day.
  3. You navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\IntuneManagementExtension\Logs, assuming you remember the path.
  4. You open the log in Notepad or CMTrace.
  5. You search for the app name or error keyword.
  6. You find a hex error code like 0x87D00215.
  7. You open a browser and search for that code.
  8. You find a Microsoft doc that says “check the MSI log.”
  9. You navigate to C:\Windows\Temp, find the right MSI log, and start the process over.

Every step is manual. Every step wastes time. And when you’re troubleshooting under pressure, like a deployment failing across 500 devices or Autopilot breaking during a hardware refresh, that wasted time adds up fast.

CMTrace Open replaces this entire workflow, not just the log viewer.

What Makes CMTrace Open Different

CMTrace Open was built specifically for the way modern IT admins work. Here’s what it brings to the table:

  • Cross-platform. Runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Built with Tauri for a fast, native UI on every platform. If you’re managing Intune from a Mac, you’re no longer left out.
  • Auto-detects 15+ log formats. Open any log file and CMTrace Open figures out what it is. CCM, CBS, DISM, Panther, MSI verbose, PSADT, Burn, ReportingEvents, DHCP, timestamped, plain text, and even Windows registry exports. No configuration, no manual format selection.
  • Built-in error code database. 796 error codes across 14 categories including Windows, Intune, MSI, PSADT, certificates, networking, Windows Update, BITS, ConfigMgr, and Delivery Optimization. Press Ctrl+E, type a hex code or decimal, and get the name, description, and category instantly. No more browser tabs.
  • Intune diagnostics workspace. A dedicated view that analyzes all your IME logs together. Event timeline, download statistics, confidence scoring, and automatic correlation between IntuneManagementExtension.log, AppWorkload.log, and AgentExecutor.log. See the full picture of what happened, not just one log file at a time.
  • DSRegCmd analysis. Paste or capture dsregcmd /status output and get structured analysis with automatic issue detection. When a device won’t Hybrid Join or you’re chasing a PRT issue, CMTrace Open tells you exactly which test failed and why.
  • Real-time log tailing. Watch logs as they’re written. Filters apply to new entries in real-time. Pause and resume. Automatic log rotation detection. Turn CMTrace Open into a live debugger when you need to reproduce a problem.
  • 28 preset Known Log Sources. Never hunt for file paths again. One click to open the Intune IME logs folder, the Panther logs, the CBS log, MSI temp logs, PSADT deployment logs, or any of the 9 macOS-specific sources. The paths are built in.

Who This Is For

CMTrace Open is for anyone who reads Windows logs as part of their job:

  • Intune admins troubleshooting app deployments, script failures, and enrollment issues
  • SCCM/ConfigMgr engineers who already know CMTrace but need more
  • Desktop support teams diagnosing end-user device problems
  • MDM engineers building and testing deployment workflows
  • Anyone who’s tired of Notepad and Google

If you manage endpoints and you read logs, CMTrace Open was built for you.

Get Started

CMTrace Open is free and open source. Download the latest release from GitHub, install it, and open your first log file. In the next post, we’ll walk through your first five minutes with the tool, from download to finding your first error code.