How can I monitor a Windows directory for changes?

Question

When a change is made within a directory on a Windows system, I need a program to be notified immediately of the change.

Is there some way of executing a program whe

Answer 1

There is no utility or program the comes with Windows to do it. Some programming required.

As noted in another answer, .NET's FileSystemWatcher is the easiest approach.

The native API ReadDirectoryChangesW is rather harder to use (requires an understanding of completion ports).