Tail Command for Windows

Tial is orginally a Unix command that has been ported to Windows that prints last ‘N’ lines of any text file.

Tail command for Windows is one to the tools in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools free upgrade provided by Microsoft. It has been discounted and not available from official Microsoft support sites any longer. Luckily, we have the Way Back Machine to our rescue.

Getting tail command for Windows

Firstly, download Windows resource kit from the Internet Archive link

📂Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (English) : Microsoft Corporation : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Run the en_windows_server_2003_reskit.exe

It installs the tools in the default directory C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools


Add path to Environment Variable to avoid changing directory to the install directory
How to: Add Tool Locations to the PATH Environment Variable | Microsoft Learn

or unzip the msi and copy tail.exe to C:\Windows\System32 

1. Download 7-Zip from this page and install it.
2. Right-click on the .exe file (menu choose 7-Zip > Extract to "en_windows_server_2003_reskit\")
3. Navigate to folder and right-click on the rktools.msi file (from the menu choose 7-Zip > Extract to "rktools\"
4. Navigate to folder and copy tail.exe to c:\Windows\System32

Tail command usage

C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools>tail.exe /?
usage: TAIL [switches] [filename]*
switches: [-?] display this message
[-n] display last n lines of each file (default 10)
[-f filename] keep checking filename for new lines

Examples:

To print the last 10 lines of the file  data.txt:

tail -10 A.txt

To print the data as and when it’s added to the file:

tail -f A.txt

The above command is mostly used for viewing log files contents while more data is being written to them. Tail command with -f option does not terminate until the user presses [Ctrl]-[C].

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools available commands;  

The following tools are provided:

• Acctinfo.dll (documented in Readme.htm)
• Adlb.exe: Active Directory Load Balancing Tool
• Admx.msi: ADM File Parser
• Atmarp.exe: Windows ATM ARP Server Information Tool
• Atmlane.exe: Windows ATM LAN Emulation Client Information
• Autoexnt.exe: AutoExNT Service
• Cdburn.exe: ISO CD-ROM Burner Tool
• Checkrepl.vbs: Check Replication
• Chklnks.exe: Link Check Wizard
• Chknic.exe: Network Interface Card Compliance Tool for Network Load Balancing
• Cleanspl.exe: Spooler Cleaner
• Clearmem.exe: Clear Memory
• Clusdiag.msi: Cluster Diagnostics and Verification Tool
• Clusfileport.dll: Cluster Print File Port
• Clusterrecovery.exe: Server Cluster Recovery Utility
• Cmdhere.inf: Command Here
• Cmgetcer.dll: Connection Manager Certificate Deployment Tool
• Compress.exe: Compress Files
• Confdisk.exe: Disk Configuration Tool
• Consume.exe: Memory Consumers Tool
• Creatfil.exe: Create File
• Csccmd.exe: Client-Side Caching Command-Line Options
• Custreasonedit.exe: Custom Reason Editor (documented in Readme.htm)
• Delprof.exe: User Profile Deletion Utility
• Dh.exe: Display Heap
• Diskraid.exe: RAID Configuration Tool
• Diskuse.exe: User Disk Usage Tool
• Dnsdiag.exe: SMTP DNS Diagnostic Tool (documented in Readme.htm)
• Dumpfsmos.cmd: Dump FSMO Roles
• Dvdburn.exe: ISO DVD Burner Tool
• Empty.exe: Free Working Set Tool
• Eventcombmt.exe: Check Replication
• Fcopy.exe: File Copy Utility for Message Queuing
• Frsflags.vbs
• Getcm.exe: Connection Manager Profile Update
• Gpmonitor.exe: Group Policy Monitor
• Gpotool.exe: Group Policy Objects
• Hlscan.exe: Hard Link Display Tool
• Ifilttst.exe: IFilter Test Suite
• Ifmember.exe: User Membership Tool
• Inetesc.adm: Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration
• Iniman.exe: Initialization Files Manipulation Tool
• Instcm.exe: Install Connection Manager Profile
• Instsrv.exe: Service Installer
• Intfiltr.exe: Interrupt Affinity Tool
• Kerbtray.exe: Kerberos Tray
• Kernrate.exe: Kernel Profiling Tool
• Klist.exe: Kerberos List
• Krt.exe: Certification Authority Key Recovery
• Lbridge.cmd: L-Bridge
• Linkd.exe
• Linkspeed.exe: Link Speed
• List.exe: List Text File Tool
• Lockoutstatus.exe: Account Lockout Status (documented in Readme.htm)
• Logtime.exe
• Lsreport.exe: Terminal Services Licensing Reporter
• Lsview.exe: Terminal Services License Server Viewer
• Mcast.exe: Multicast Packet Tool
• Memmonitor.exe: Memory Monitor
• Memtriage.exe: Resource Leak Triage Tool
• Mibcc.exe: SNMP MIB Compiler
• Moveuser.exe: Move Users
• Mscep.dll: Certificate Services Add-on for Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol
• Nlsinfo.exe: Locale Information Tool
• Now.exe: STDOUT Current Date and Time
• Ntimer.exe: Windows Program Timer
• Ntrights.exe
• Oh.exe: Open Handles
• Oleview.exe: OLE/COM Object Viewer
• Pathman.exe: Path Manager
• Permcopy.exe: Share Permissions Copy
• Perms.exe: User File Permissions Tool
• Pfmon.exe: Page Fault Monitor
• Pkiview.msc: PKI Health Tool
• Pmon.exe: Process Resource Monitor
• Printdriverinfo.exe: Drivers Source
• Prnadmin.dll: Printer Administration Objects
• Qgrep.exe
• Qtcp.exe: QoS Time Stamp
• Queryad.vbs: Query Active Directory
• Rassrvmon.exe: RAS Server Monitor
• Rcontrolad.exe: Active Directory Remote Control Add-On
• Regini.exe: Registry Change by Script
• Regview.exe (documented in Readme.htm)
• Remapkey.exe: Remap Windows Keyboard Layout
• Robocopy.exe: Robust File Copy Utility
• Rpccfg.exe: RPC Configuration Tool
• Rpcdump.exe
• Rpcping.exe
• RPing: RPC Connectivity Verification Tool
• Rqc.exe: Remote Access Quarantine Client
• Rqs.exe: Remote Access Quarantine Agent
• Setprinter.exe: Spooler Configuration Tool
• Showacls.exe
• Showperf.exe: Performance Data Block Dump Utility
• Showpriv.exe: Show Privilege
• Sleep.exe: Batch File Wait
• Sonar.exe: FRS Status Viewer
• Splinfo.exe: Print Spooler Information
• Srvany.exe: Applications as Services Utility
• Srvcheck.exe: Server Share Check
• Srvinfo.exe: Remote Server Information
• Srvmgr.exe: Server Manager
• Ssdformat.exe: System State Data Formatter
• Subinacl.exe
• Tail.exe - List last n line of a file
• Tcmon.exe: Traffic Control Monitor
• Timeit.exe (documented in Readme.htm)
• Timezone.exe: Daylight Saving Time Update Utility
• Tsctst.exe: Terminal Server Client License Dump Tool
• Tsscalling.exe: Terminal Services Scalability Planning Tools
• Uddicatschemeeditor.exe: UDDI Services Categorization Scheme Editor
• Uddiconfig.exe: UDDI Services Command-line Configuration Utility
• Uddidataexport.exe: UDDI Data Export Wizard
• Usrmgr.exe: User Manager for Domains
• Vadump.exe: Virtual Address Dump
• Vfi.exe: Visual File Information
• Volperf.exe: Shadow Copy Performance Counters
• Volrest.exe: Shadow Copies for Shared Folders Restore Tool
• Vrfydsk.exe: Verify Disk
• Winexit.scr: Windows Exit Screen Saver
• Winhttpcertcfg.exe: WinHTTP Certificate Configuration Tool
• Winhttptracecfg.exe: WinHTTP Tracing Facility Configuration Tool
• Winpolicies.exe: Policy Spy
• Wins.dll: WINS Replication Network Monitor Parser
• Wlbs_hb.dll & Wlbs_rc.dll: Windows Load Balancing Server Network Monitor Parsers