Monitoring the system for file creation

[reader]

I'm hoping someone can coach me a bit about a tool that will let me
know when a file is created on my system.

I've gotten really discouraged trying to google this up.

Strings like `File creation monitor' provide no shortage of hits but
in the end you must download install and try to really even just learn
the basics about a tool.

I find there is so much really sorry junk out there that the process I
described above is an all out pain in the butt. Very time consuming
and not really likely to get a good result.

I hope someone here may have tried something and found it to be a
useful tool. All I really am after is to quickly learn of any files
created. I'd like to be able to do this recursively even starting as
broadly as C:\. I'd like this to happen as quickly as one can expect
with such a big search... but after a few tries I'll begin to know
where to look more precisely.

So if you have ever needed such a tool and found one you liked please
tell me about it. Otherwise I might be at this for most of the next
decade. : ).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm hoping someone can coach me a bit about a tool that will let me
know when a file is created on my system.

I've gotten really discouraged trying to google this up.

Strings like `File creation monitor' provide no shortage of hits but
in the end you must download install and try to really even just learn
the basics about a tool.

I find there is so much really sorry junk out there that the process I
described above is an all out pain in the butt. Very time consuming
and not really likely to get a good result.

I hope someone here may have tried something and found it to be a
useful tool. All I really am after is to quickly learn of any files
created. I'd like to be able to do this recursively even starting as
broadly as C:\. I'd like this to happen as quickly as one can expect
with such a big search... but after a few tries I'll begin to know
where to look more precisely.

So if you have ever needed such a tool and found one you liked please
tell me about it. Otherwise I might be at this for most of the next
decade. : ).

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) has a number of
tools for this sort of thing - look here for "Monitor File Creation":
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/storage/files/default.mspx?mfr=true
Note that the script monitors a single folder, "c:\script" in this case.
To monitor a whole tree you would have to run the script for every
subfolder, which would slow down your machine considerably.

Post again if you need help in creating and running the script.