Windows maintains a list of programs that have been executed on the operating system in the Windows Registry. This Windows program history contains detailed information about the programs that have been launched by the active Windows user.
The feature has been available since for a long time and Microsoft has continued to implement it in Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well.
The information are stored in the Windows Registry under a UserAssist key which contains various information that are encrypted with the ROT-13 algorithm. The information stored under the UserAssist key in the Registry can become a privacy and security risk.
The program history is stored under the following Registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist
Several applications have been created to automatically decrypt the information and display them in a readable form to the user. One of those programs is UserassistView by Nirsoft.
The portable software program displays a list of item names, their index number, times they were started, modified time and ClassID.
It is possible to delete selected or all entries from the listing. The UserAssist key will however be automatically filled with new information from that point on so that it might be a better idea to schedule a regular cleaning job with a program like CCleaner.
The program history can also be saved as text, csv or html files for further inspection. UserAssistView is compatible with all Windows NT based operating systems including Windows 7. It can be downloaded directly from the Nirsoft homepage.
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You know what ROT-13 ‘encryption’ algorithm is? It replaces every letter with letter 13 places furter up in alphabet.
That’s probably the only algorithm that can be decoded realtime by human eyes:D