Alarm if file is touched or altered.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred
  • Start date Start date
F

Fred

I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.

Is here any background utility which does this?
 
I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.
Click to expand...
Is here any background utility which does this?
Click to expand...

One could be written but how often do you want the file checked? This
could eat a lot of resources.
 
Al Klein said:
One could be written but how often do you want the file checked? This
could eat a lot of resources
Click to expand...

Oh I wouldn't have thought significant resouces would have been required to
look at a file time and date stamp every few seconds to see if it had
changed?
 
Fred said:
I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.

Is here any background utility which does this?
Click to expand...


Just activate auditing for the file in question. Your file need of course be
located on a NTFS partition.
 
Oh I wouldn't have thought significant resouces would have been required to
look at a file time and date stamp every few seconds to see if it had
changed?
Click to expand...

Every few seconds can be quite a resource hit. Some people are still
running slow P3 computers. On a 2 GHz Turion it's not really a hit at
all. YMWV.
 
Al Klein said:
One could be written but how often do you want the file checked? This
could eat a lot of resources.
Click to expand...

Depends how it's coded. Using the DirectoryNotification API uses zero resources.
 
Fred said:
Sorry not NTFS!
Click to expand...

A program to track the changes of the file should be very simple to make.
Using FindFirstChangeNotification to get a notification handle to the file
with FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE filter should do it. This uses almost no
resources at all because there is no need to poll for the changes. The OS
do it for you instead.

Do you want the changes to be logged to a file? I'm asking because I could
implement such a beast when I'm done with the next version of Cobian Backup.
 
if you are concerned with spyware and trojans use Prevx Home. It will
let you know if an exe are removed or modified, and registry settings:

prevx home 2.1(2005), later version may not be freeware anymore
 
Luis Cobian said:
A program to track the changes of the file should be very simple to make.
Using FindFirstChangeNotification to get a notification handle to the
file
with FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE filter should do it. This uses almost
no
resources at all because there is no need to poll for the changes. The OS
do it for you instead.

Do you want the changes to be logged to a file? I'm asking because I could
implement such a beast when I'm done with the next version of Cobian
Backup.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your reply. I have virtually no windows programming
skills so it would be unrealistic for me to write such a thing.

I literally would like an audible alarm to sound when a file is altered. I
wouldn't need a log file.

Many thanks again.
 
I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.

Is here any background utility which does this?
Click to expand...

Here's something that should work for you. Written by Robin Keir (K9).

FileWatch

This is a program that monitors a given file for changes in size. It
is very efficient; a small program that uses almost no CPU time.

When the selected file is detected to have changed size or even just
been written to without changing it's size ICEWatch can play a given
sound file and maximize it's window showing the time and date of when
the file changed.

http://www.foundstone.com/resources/proddesc/filewatch.htm

http://www.foundstone.com/resources/termsofuse.htm?file=filewatch.zip
 
I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.

Is here any background utility which does this?
Click to expand...

And this one too.

Notify 1.0 - Alerts user when watched files/directories are modified,
low overhead

License: Freeware

Runs hidden in the background until it detects any kind of change in
a directory it has been told to monitor. When a change occurs (e.g.
create, delete, modify a file) it visually alerts the user. Can be
used, for example, to detect incoming information over a network or to
detect tampering of files. Uses very little memory and practically no
CPU time.

http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/notify/
 
Fred said:
I would like an audible means of telling if the modified time and date of a
file is changed for WinXP.

Is here any background utility which does this?
Click to expand...

Many thanks for all the responses. In the end I chose File Watch.
 
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