System difference before/after installation of new software

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kevin Hector
  • Start date Start date
K

Kevin Hector

Hi. Is there a utility for XP that can detect all changes
made to my system when I install new software? By this I
mean changes to existing files, new files added, registry
changes made, etc.

Thanks

KH
 
Hi

I've heard of some 3rd party programs that might do what you want, but don't know the names of any. Try a search on www.google.com - you should be able to find something there.

Will
 
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Hi Kevin,

Thank you for posting!

I am afraid there is not a perfect tool for this. Microsoft does not have
such an tool to compare the files and registries before and after
installing an application.

However, there are some third party tool that may help in at least some of
the areas.

1. Advanced Registry Tracer (from ElcomSoft)

You can use this tool to scan the registry, and then install the
applicatoin. Then scan the registry again. Then we can compare the results.
It would list the difference.

2. The regmon and filemon tools from Sysinternals.

These tools capture the real-time access to the registry or files.

As for comparing all files before and after installing an application, I am
afraid there is not such a tool. Actually, this is not practical as such a
tool would run very very slowly if the hard disk is very large and there
are many files on the system.

Hope this information helps some. Thank you!

Regards,
Bennie Chen
Product Support Services
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Thanks Bennie. I'll check them out. I also searched and
found a tool called ConfigSafe [1] which can take a
snapshot before and after installation and produce a
report of differences.

I had hoped XP's System Restore feature would be able to
produce a similar report, but alas this appears not to be
the case.

Regards

Kevin

[1] http://www.imaginelan.com/configsafe/
 
Hi Kevin,

Thank you for your feedback and the additional information!

Though Windows does not have this feature, I feel that your suggestion is a
good idea. Thank you!

Regards,
Bennie Chen
Product Support Services
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
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