Iain Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 I know there are several lists of USB applications on various sites, but is there some way that I can check if an application installs anything or makes changes on the PC (for instance, to the registry)? I've looked at a number of download sites to see if they specify whether the application installs or is stand alone and this information is very rarely given. I'm interested in particular in WinRar, WinZip, RockXP, PSPV and Firefox, but I just wonder if anyone knows if there is any definitive information about non-installing software or how I could check whether something has made changes to the PC. Iain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Insted of WinRAR or WinZip, use 7zip... it's less anoying and compleatly free, and I can garentee Firefox is 'safe'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 and I can garentee Firefox is 'safe'. I really hope you mean that it'll definitely go on a USB key, if you mean you guarentee it's safe in terms of security then I would recommend that you think a little harder about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 I said "'safe'", meaning that safe is a relative thing. Relative to a random barly knowen browser Firefox is definitly a much safer choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 By that logic, IE would be the safest browser on the planet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 IE is safe relative to what? A pile of your money left on a bench some where? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted October 8, 2006 Author Share Posted October 8, 2006 Thanks for the tips. Does anyone know how I could find out if such software made any changes to the PC (registry, .dlls etc.) or if it left the PC "clean"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 Both 7zip and Firefox do make changes to the registary, but only when you tell them to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 Thanks for the tips. Does anyone know how I could find out if such software made any changes to the PC (registry, .dlls etc.) or if it left the PC "clean"? Yes! There is. Two little apps from sysinternals will do the job nicely. I use them for when I'm trying to force applications to deploy across a network :) FileMon is a little utility that monitors all changes to files. You can set filters so you only see changes made by certain applications etc. And RegMon is utility that does the exact same thing, but monitors changes to the registry instead of changes to files :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jester Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 Iain: I think this is more what you are looking for http://portableapps.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted October 8, 2006 Author Share Posted October 8, 2006 Thank you for the further feedback. FileMon and RegMon seem to be just what I want! I'll look into them further. I'm aware of portableapps.com. I appreciate that in the introduction, it states that no personal data will be left behind but that doesn't mean that the software doesn't make changes to the PC. Indeed, Sparda said that Firefox does make changes to the registry when allowed. Iain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoyBoy Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 I reccomend the X11R7 window server Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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