Maybe your question is poorly stated, then.
What I thought you asked was how to read Linux log files from a
Windows installation, e.g., when Linux fails to boot.
In the past I've been able to do that using ext2fsd without much difficulty.
I used that method when I wasn't able to boot a rescue or live CD,
and the last resort would have been to pull the hard drive from the
machine and use a different computer to inspect it.
But if /var/log/messages is not made available by default, then using ext2fsd
won't work, and other methods become more difficult also.
My main complaint is that removing the default syslog to
/var/log/messages makes it harder for me to diagnose broken machines
that OTHER people have set up, because those other people aren't going
to have installed a non-default syslog daemon. Certainly if it's a
machine I'm installing, I'll know to install syslog.