It is virtually impossible to keep an overview of all the system changes of a computer system. Windows does not offer a way to keep track of the changes that are made by applications, updates and the operating system and even if there was a way it would provide the user with a long list of system changes leaving inexperienced and probably even many experienced users in doubt.
Monitoring system changes should therefor concentrate on the core parts of the Windows operating system, say the Windows Registry and the system32 folder in the Windows directory. You find several applications that can monitor selected folders in real time, Winpatrol is one of them.
Tiny Watcher monitors system changes in a different way. It scans the important folders and Registry locations during initial setup and reports on the changes only when it is started again. This has the advantage that no application is monitoring the system in real time which consumes system resources. The disadvantage is that the user will be notified about changes after they happened.
Tiny Watcher is therefor not a real time system protection application, more of a tool that allows a forensic analysis of system changes. It still offers functions to deal with the changes that have been made to the system.
It provides access to a web search to gather information about a change but also to confirm, disable or remove it. Those actions can be problematic, it is generally not advised to delete items unless it is known that deleting them causes no harm. It is normally not a problem to delete a startup entry but it could be highly problematic to delete a file in a Windows folder.
Tiny Watcher works best when executed during system start or closely after. Each action is written in a log file which is – again – excellent for tracing a file or system change.
Tiny Watcher is hosted at Donation Coders. It runs on pretty much every Windows operating system, yes even Windows 95, including Windows XP and Windows Vista. It surely does not look pretty but I’d say functionality > looks all the time.
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2 Responses to “Monitor System Changes With Tiny Watcher”
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[...] Windows only: Free Windows utility Tiny Watcher tattles on your system and what’s been changed on it without having to stay open and use resources in the background. After running a system scan once at installation, Tiny Watcher checks the registry and system folders to see what’s changed since it was last run, as well as offering options to “Remove,” “Disable,” and search the web for information on system processes and common Windows changes. You have to be really cautious, of course, before deleting or disabling things you don’t fully understand, but it’s a great way of checking just when and why that mysterious folder at your hard drive root was created, without digging through logs or keeping a monitor open. Tiny Watcher is a free download for Windows systems only. Tiny Watcher [Donation Coders via gHacks] [...]
Looks interesting. I’ll try it.
I’ve been using the old Syslog utility for years but it also hasn’t been updated since 2001.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hneel/software.htm