The main interface of Windows File Analyzer is driven by five buttons in the top toolbar that each open up a file browser window. The file analysis software can be used to analyse the following five files: index.dat, prefetch, thumbs.db , shortcuts and recycle bins. Not every Windows system makes use of all of those files as some functions like the thumbnail generation can be deactivated.

Windows File Analyzer will analyse the contents of the selected file and display the results in a table. The table will contain various information depending on the file that has been analyzed. Analyzing a thumbs.db file will for example display all the thumbnails that it contains while the analysis of the prefetch data will display information about the applications that are prefetched, the time the entry has been created and last used on the computer system.

Windows File Analyzer combines various tools that can be used to analyse a computer system and reveal information about its users. Multiple file analysis’ can be open at the same time. Each report can be printed in user friendly form for further analysis. Some knowledge is required to start a file analysis which might require research on the Internet to find out where the files that can be analyses are located on the computer system.

The files can be displayed by various parameters like file type, file attributes or biggest files. A detailed list of all existing file types is for instance available that is showing the total file count of each type and the percentage of the total amount of files in the directory.

The biggest files tab can be used to find the top x biggest files in the selected location. This can be useful if the hard drive is running low on disk space to find the files that use the largest amount of disk space on the drive.

Another interesting option is the display of duplicate files. It can be used to locate and delete duplicate files on the computer system. Only the name will be checked though which means that there will usually be a lot of files with the same name but a different size (think of all the readme.txt files in the programs folder). The duplicate file tab is unfortunately not displaying file sizes or hash values which would make the identification easier.

Reports can be generated which can include all the information that are collected by the Windows Directory Analyzer. The report is saved as a html file. Simple Directory Analyzer requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5.