Use FileMon to Monitor Your File Activity
FileMon is a free Microsoft utility which monitors and displays file system activity on a system. This includes when a file is opened, read, write or deleted. Like it’s sister utility RegMon, FileMon can be used if you suspect some Malware is residing on your computer, so you can monitor what’s occurring at your Windows based computer. And, you are doing this at very level.
For those working in an enterprise environment, it comes in handy when attempting to discover what specific files are written to during certain actions. This came in handy when I used an ADP time sheet program in which ADP insisted we provide local Administrator privileges for each user. Talk about trying to to take the easy way out. Using FileMon, I was able to determine that the time sheet program, called Etimesheet, created temp files when started. So, instead of allowing local Admin permissions for every person on our domain, I simply provided write permissions on the files and individual folders required for the program.
To see how FileMon works, watch my VIDEO.
