title: Consuming "Event Tracing for Windows" events
body: <p>An answer to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2377248">this</a> question has led me to look into using "Event Tracing for Windows" for our tracing needs. I have come across <a href="http://www.codeplex.com/NTrace" rel="nofollow noreferrer">NTrace</a>, which seems to be a good way to produce ETW events from C# code (using the XP-compatible "classic provider" model).</p>
  
  <p>However, I am unable to find an easy way to <em>consume</em> these events - to see them in real-time and/or log them to a file. The only way I have found is that described in the NTrace documentation: using a tool which is only available as part of the Windows DDK.</p>
  
  <p>In the case of a complex problem in the field, we may need to ask the <em>user</em> to produce a file containing a trace. We can't ask users to download the DDK or carry out a number of complex operations in order to do this.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a straightforward, user-friendly way to log ETW events to a file?</p>
  
  <p>Also, is it possible for someone to consume ETW events on Windows Vista/7 if they are not running as administrator?</p>