Is your WINDOWS SYSTEM directory growing bigger and bigger, whenever you try out some new Windows software? Or you know that virus usually copies and hides itself inside Windows folder and need a tool to monitor for Windows directory changes? Previously I’ve written about a very good and small tool called Tiny Watcher which can take snapshot of important parts of your Windows system; then it tracks changes (every time you log in, or whenever you want to). When a change is detected, you are notified.

Here is another similar tool called Syslog which is portable, free and is very similar to Tiny Watcher. It has less configuration than Tiny Watcher and can be used by both computer newbies and experts. All you need to do is run the small program, enter a comment and it takes merely a few seconds (6 seconds on my laptop) to scan for changes in Windows folder.

Syslog is a small tool that keeps track of any changes that occur in your Windows System directory. Upon first run, it creates a database, using the current content of the directory. The next time you run it, it will compare the database to the current content and show you which files have been added or removed.

Monitor Windows Folder with Syslog

If you want to view back the old logs in Syslog, you can click the small Log icon at the menubar and the syslog.log file that has old changes records will open. It will show you the date, comment and also changes in Windows folder. That is all in Syslog, no complication settings or options. I would advice you to run Syslog at least once a day because if you don’t run it for a long time, there would be a lot of changes and it’d be tedious and time consuming for you to check every changes.

The last time Syslog updated was on 29 may 2001. Syslog is an old tool but a good tool. It does what you need it to do and does not fail. Its small memory footprint is nice compared to some which take more of your processing power. I’ve tested Syslog on Windows Vista, the first run to create the database was successful but when you run it the second time to compare the database, Syslog crashes! As for Windows XP, Syslog works flawlessly. How I wish the author could update this tool to support Windows Vista.

[ Download Syslog v3.2 ]

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