title: Force Apache to update log files path without restart in WAMP
body: <p>How can I <strong>force Apache</strong> (part of <strong>WAMP</strong>) to <strong>write</strong> the <strong>new logs</strong> in the <strong>new log files</strong> without restarting the server?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>In <strong>Apache2\conf\httpd.conf</strong> I updated the path for <code>ErrorLog</code> and <code>CustomLog</code> directives.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>before:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ErrorLog ../logs/a.log
  ...
  CustomLog ../logs/b.log common
  </code></pre></li>
  <li><p>after:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ErrorLog ../logs/a2.log
  ...
  CustomLog ../logs/b2.log common
  </code></pre></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The <code>LogLevel</code> and <code>LogFormat</code> directives were not changed.</p>
  
  <p>After I changed them, I managed (I don't know how - accidentally or it was done automatically, but I am sure that I didn't restart the server explicitly) to get the new logs in the new files. Maybe this didn't happen immediately, because I observed this after 20 minutes (the new log files were created and the new logs went to them, not to the old ones). This is what I wanted to achieve!</p>
  
  <p>But then I changed the paths again:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>../logs/a2.log</code> => <code>../logs/a3.log</code> </li>
  <li><code>../logs/b2.log</code> => <code>../logs/b3.log</code></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>but the logs didn't go to the new path (they were still written to <code>../logs/a2.log</code> and <code>../logs/b2.log</code>).</p>
  
  <p>I was thinking at the following 2 <strong>possible approaches</strong> that could solve my problem, but probably there is another approach:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Reload the whole <strong>httpd.conf</strong> without stopping the Apache (or any other component from WAMP).</li>
  <li>Force only the <strong><code>ErrorLog</code></strong> and <strong><code>CustomLog</code></strong> lines to be updated (in terms of executing some commands directly in cmd, ignoring the httpd.conf file).</li>
  </ol>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Details</strong>:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>WAMP5 1.6.6 (<em>upgrading is not a solution</em>)
  
  <ul>
  <li>Apache 2.0.59 (<em>released about 9 years ago</em>)</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>I cannot restart the server because the users need to access the applications without interruptions.</li>
  </ul>