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How do you track how/when your programs are laucnhed?

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by deejay2009

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I've been looking through the Event viewer and I can't find logs directly related to when certain programs are launched.

I noticed that Vista tracks how frequently you use certain programs and lists them in the start menu. Where's the record stored?

Specifically, I am trying to know if my browser, Chrome was launched during a certain time frame? Is that logged?

thanks!

3 replies

by thumbsup2

Windows keeps track of how often a program is used by keeping a counter in the registry and that's the frequently used programs you see on the start menu.

There is no way to tell WHEN a specific program was launched, let alone a specific instance of that program, unless you can find something that went wrong upon launch and it got stored in a log somewhere.

by scott_heath

I haven't checked my Vista install yet, but Microsoft doesn't normally remove this sort of thing. If you are using a non-home version of the OS run GPEDIT.MSC. Drill down through computer config, windows settings, security settings, local policies, audit policy.

Enable Success and Failure of Process Tracking. Then watch you security log. It's not elegant, but it works.

I made a much simpler but maybe not very attractive vbscript for tracking this sort of thing. I'll try and post it on my blog tomorrow or Tuesday. Essentially I monitor processes for a specific executable name, then I can watch the PID and look for a end process event so I am notified if the app is ever closed.

Regards,
Scott

http://scottisageek.spaces.live.com

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