hi all i was just wondering if there is a way to see which user installed certain programs on the computer. As this is a shared computer I constantly find programs on it I have never heard of and everyone claims they never installed them and have no idea what they r. is there a way? some sort of program maybe? i have Tweak XP. i just thought maybe there is even a feature in that will tell u. thanx in advance robbo btw great forum!

Well if you upgrade to XP Pro you can go to the event log in the Admin. Tool Area. Why not just have everyone who shares the computer their own login name and password then you can easily know who did it.

robbo: If it's YOUR computer they're sharing, do what CompSavy suggested, but make their accounts "user." No administrator rights = no surprise software. 8-) Solarian

lol ok i better be honest with u guys. i didnt really tell the whole story. the truth is its my dads computer but im the only one who really properly knows what im doing with it. as in if something pops up out of nowhere saying "would u like to install this program for no particular reason?" neone else in the family would go yes and start installing it and bang on comes some spyware or something. yeh so they do all have their own accounts but i still dont know how to check what is being installed. i actually did put my sisters account to limited for a while but then every 5 seconds when she wanted to install something legitament like software for her digi cam. neway having her account on limited started making problems like error messages and programs saying they were installed when they weren't. keep in mind i do have XP Professional if u read my thing up the top, how do i check exactly whos installed what? thanx robbo

robbo: CompSavy's advice still holds. If you're the administrator, you can keep track of everything through the logs kept in Administrative Services. Solarian

Robbo, Go to the Start menu, Settings, control panel, administrative tools, computer managemnet and finally event viewer. You should be able to see all the logs there. I am pretty sure the one you need to look at is the Application log. Hope this helped!! Joel

yeh thanx heaps. ill try it when i get home. sounds like its exactly what i wanted. another thing though: what would u guys recommend out of a FAT32 or NTFS hard drive format? currently im using FAT32. basically i want the machines for gaming but also i wouldnt mind setting a few permissions so i could feel like i was the administrator. from what i have heard FAT32 is faster and better for gaming, however NTFS has more features, especially with XP Professional. is this all true? thanx for ur help so far robbo