Display Windows user activities and events with LastActivityView

LastActivityView is a new Nirsoft application that displays the last activities of the logged in user on a system running Windows.

The program features the usual traits that you find in all Nirsoft applications: it is portable, lightweight and small in size. To use it download it from the official Nirsoft website and unpack it on your system once the download has completed. Run the single executable and watch how it populates the user's activities on the system.

The program sorts the activities by time by default. Each table row displays the time the event occurred, the description which usually provides you with information about the type of event, file names and paths if available, and more information which offers miscellaneous information if available.

LastActivityView

The program catches a variety of activities that include system start and shutdown, Windows Installer events, WiFi connects, when programs are run, files or folders are opened, software is installed, or networks are connected. A full list of events is available on the Nirsoft website.

You can sort the data that is displayed to you by clicking on a table header which essentially means that you can sort the activities by description, file name, path or misc information instead of time they happened on the system.

The program gathers information from various locations, including the Windows Registry, the prefetch folder, the Windows Events log and the Minidump folder among other sources.

The search option may come in handy if you are interested in a particular activity, for instance at a specific day of the year or if a folder or file has been accessed.

You can save selected information as txt, csv or xml files, or create a HTML report of the selection or all events listed in the application. These export options are also available from the command line, only that all actions and events found by the application will be exported into the selected file. The program is really easy to use and requires no deeper knowledge of how the operating system works.

The program can be helpful for troubleshooting sessions to find out what a user did at a specific point in time. It may also be helpful to simply check what activities get recorded by Windows.

Closing Words

LastActivityView is a useful portable program for the Windows operating system that reveals information that Windows stores by default. While limited to the logged in user, it may be useful for troubleshooting or making sure certain data is removed from the system so that it cannot reveal actions anymore.

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