Problem with filebeat yml file on Windows

Have a look at our YAML tips and gotchas.

The problem is with the backslash character in the different paths:
path: C:\Users\.... <--- Wrong

Here, the YAML parser undestands \U as the start of a UNICODE escape character.

As the documentation suggests, you should wrap paths in 'single quotes':

path: 'C:\Users....' <---- Correct