What Changed system diagnostic, monitoring and backup software

Hard disk monitoring system
What Changed

What Changed is a utility that will take a snapshot of your hard drive and, at a later date, compare your current hard drive with that snapshot. It reports in detail all files and/or directories that have been added or deleted. It also reports any files that already existed but have been changed. To look for changes in files, What Changed looks for changes in either length or time/date stamp of files. It also gives a detailed description of any changes that have occurred in the AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI files. In addition, What Changed will automatically back to a floppy or ZIP drive up any files that have been added or modified since the snapshot. You can, if you wish, keep multiple snapshots, allowing you to compare your current hard drive with various times in the past.

What Changed has many uses. Among these are:

1) Maintaining periodic backups of your hard drives. You can take a snapshot of your hard drives, and later have What Changed back up all files that have been added or changed on any of your hard drives since you made the snapshot. When you have backed up these files, you can then make another snapshot, overwriting your previous snapshot, and you are ready to make another backup in another week or so, and so on.

2) Tracking changes that occur in your system when you install a new program or make similar changes in your system. The report that What Changed gives on changes in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, WIN.INI, and SYSTEM.INI files can be particularly interesting. Being able to view what changed when you installed or upgraded a program can be very useful if you suddenly find that things are not working properly on your system after the installation. For example, often after you install a new program, you will find that another program that was working perfectly suddenly is no longer working. This can be because the program you installed overwrote some shared file with an incompatible version. Using What Changed to identify the changes that occurred in your system can be very useful in repairing the damage.

3) Checking your system for viruses. Since a virus infecting a file can change either the size or date of the file, the report given by What Changed can help you check your system for viruses. You should be particularly careful if you find changes in normally stable files like COMMAND.COM or WIN.EXE.

4) Checking your system for corrupted files. If you find that a program is suddenly not working properly, you can check to see if there has been a sudden change in any files associated with that program that might indicate that it has become corrupted.

5) Monitoring use of your computer when you are not present. If you think someone has been using your computer without your permission, you can make a snapshot when you leave the computer and then view changes when you come back. This can be useful, for example, to make sure your kids are not using your computer without permission.

This program requires Windows 95, 98, NT, XP, ME, or 2000. To download this program, click here. This will download an install program, whcharc.exe. Once you have downloaded this program, run it by double clicking on its icon in Explorer or running it using the Run function on the Start menu . This will automatically install What Changed on your computer.
This program is distributed as shareware. You may try it for 30 days free. If, at the end of that time, you decide to continue using the program, you must pay the registration fee of $25.00 (volume discounts available).
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or problem reports, you can email them to Leithauser Research at [email protected]. You can also call Leithauser Research at (386) 410-6769 between the hours of 11 AM and 9PM Eastern Time or write to:

Leithauser Research
821 SnapDragon Drive
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168

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