"Cassidy Macfarlane" wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > You can, of course, use regmon (sysinternals.com) to monitor the > registry 'live' while changes are being made, however it sounds like you > want a product that would analyse the reg, then re-analyse after > installation, and report on changes. > > This would indeed be a handy tool. Anyone know of anything better than > regmon for this purpose?
Yes, absolutely. It's called "InCtrl5" and it is *exactly* what you both want. You run it once, it snapshots the state of the registry, the entire contents of your HD, and the content of all the various text files such as autoexec.bat / win.ini / boot.ini / autoexec.nt (etc). Then it exits. You install whatever it is you wanted to install, then run it again; it takes another snapshot, then compares the two and makes you a nice report showing *every* change to your system - registry keys and values added, deleted or modified; files and directories added, deleted or modified; and any changes to those startup-script text files. It needn't be an install. It'll tell you whatever differences there are between the before and after snapshots. What you do in between those two times is up to you. For instance it's quite interesting to take a snapshot, do a reboot, and run the comparison when the machine boots up again, to see how much volatile stuff gets changed every time you reboot windows. Or you can *un*install something, and by checking against the original installation report (or by snapshotting, installing, running, then uninstalling the app straight away before finally getting the comparison report) see if it's left any traces behind. It's incredibly useful. You'll have to google for it though. It was originally given away by some PC magazine or other, but they've restricted access to their archives now. See what you can find. cheers, DaveK -- Can't think of a witty .sigline today.... _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html