How do I check my PC's recent activity?

[dogsballs]

Hi expert folk,

I have an easy question. How do I check a log of my PC's recent activity?

My brother in law is staying with us. He knows not to touch my PC cos I dont want it messed with. But whenever he's been in the "office" room the last couple times (there's an old PC that anyone can use in there) I come back and the displays/monitors setup on mine is all screwed up (I have 3 monitors hooked up to it). How can I check if my PC was actually in use for a certain time period (ie like when my wife and I took the dog to the beaqch this evening)? Thanks.

Just wanna make sure before I say summin'.

dogs

[SamIAm]

I don't think you'll be able to do much about activity after the fact. You can check the browser history to see where he's browsed. Check the Recent Document history, to see what he opened.

But if you want to really log stuff, there are snooping apps that you can install before the fact. I have no personal experience with these, but I'm sure there are free apps out there for concerned parents.
-Sam

[dogsballs]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Oh. I thought there would be somewhere I could look to see the times that applications were started stopped or internet connections were made? There isn't a log file of activity as part of the system?

[dogsballs]

PS: How do I check browser history? I have firefox.

edit; never mind. Found the history option; nothing there except my stuff. You can tell I'm no expert, cantcha... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[jschaud]

throw a screen saver password on there

[SamIAm]

[ QUOTE ]
throw a screen saver password on there

[/ QUOTE ]
So much less fun! But, yeah, it'll mostly be secure. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Remember that if you have no user login password, he could reboot so the scrnsaver never starts.
-Sam

[ItalianFX]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the quick reply.

Oh. I thought there would be somewhere I could look to see the times that applications were started stopped or internet connections were made? There isn't a log file of activity as part of the system?



[/ QUOTE ]

Open a folder that you may feel was opened, tile it as "Detail" and you'll see if something was opened by the Modification date. If it is at a time that you weren't there, then someone else opened it.

How I know....

I opened a police documents folder to an officer who doesn't work for the dept. anymore. I just wanted to see an example of his criminal complaints and after I opened it...no saving, no typing, no deleting...etc, it said that it was modified for the date/time that I opened the document.

I hope that makes sense.

[jschaud]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
throw a screen saver password on there

[/ QUOTE ]
So much less fun! But, yeah, it'll mostly be secure. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Remember that if you have no user login password, he could reboot so the scrnsaver never starts.
-Sam

[/ QUOTE ]

good call.

[jrbick]

I'm not on my PC right now, but I'm fairly certain that if you go to "Add/Delete Programs" in Control Panel, there's some kind of measure of access there. I know for sure they rate how often it's used. Can't remember if it shows date(s) of last use or not, though.

jrbick

[_dave_]

If you are using Windows 2000/XP, you can right click on my computer, select "manage".

Expand "Event viewer", and peruse the many events in the "application", "security" or "system" categories.

When your computer starts up or shuts down, many events will be recorded and listed here, along with a time and date.

Using this you can figure out if your PC was turned on / off during hours when you know it was not you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


Also, if you usually leave the PC off, set a BIOS password to prevent random people from turning it on. Not mega secure, but will probably deter most random family members.

dave.