Get a list of all USB devices that connected to a Windows PC
USBDriveLog is a new application by Nirsoft to display a list of all USB devices that were connected to a Windows PC in the past. One of the main uses of the application is to find out if an unauthorized device was connected to the machine, for example to copy data from the PC to the USB device.
USBDriveLog is a portable program for Windows, like all Nirsoft applications. The program works only on Windows 10 devices, as previous versions of Windows don't support the event log channels that it uses.
It is free and interested users may download it directly from the developer website. Just extract the archive it is supplied in, and run the program from any location.
The application displays the list of connected USB devices directly on start. It retrieves the data from the local system by default, but you can change that in the options to pull it from one or multiple remote computers, shadow copy, or a local folder.
Data is displayed in a table, revealing device model and revision, the manufacturer of the device, serial numbers, plug-in and unplug time, the device ID, the capacity of the device, and other information about each device.
A click on a header sorts the data accordingly. You can sort by time, starting with the most recent recorded connection, by device name, or by any other bit that is displayed in the interface.
Use Ctrl-F to display the built-in search option to find specific devices quickly. You may search by name but also by time, manufacturer, and anything else that is displayed by the portable application.
Selected items or all items can be exported to the local system. USBDriveLog supports saving the information to plain text files, csv and xml files, json files, or HTML files.
As far as options are concerned, there are not that many. You can change the capacity unit under the options menu, select which columns to display under view, and enable or disable the automatic resizing of columns and headers.
Closing Words
USBDriveLog is another handy small program by Nirsoft. It has been designed for a specific purpose, just like the majority of applications created by Nir Sofer. It is a solid addition to the tools collection of system administrators and support technicians.
Pointless waste???
I wish Nirsoft would make his software open-source.
Why not just add a “PlugTime” column to his already to “USBDeview.exe” program?
What a pointless waste…
I saw this article and tried it out, and it’s great. I love it.
As always, thanks for the “useful news from gHacks Tech News”.
I guess this replaces USBDeview?
By the way, your new “Windows software” category is a bit confusing, since Software still seems to exist (using RSS).
There’s also USBDeview (also by Nirsoft)
Mentioned briefly here: https://www.ghacks.net/2016/03/21/find-out-what-happened-recently-on-your-windows-pc/
and our initial review dates back to 2011: https://www.ghacks.net/2011/01/08/find-out-how-much-power-usb-devices-need/
This is a great utility. Windows 10 is basically spyware… it records so many things you do. This utility doesn’t fix that problem, but at least it exposes a little of the data Microsoft is storing about your activities.