Capturing all changes during an application install on Windows

Question

I need to monitor and report on all changes (folders and directories added, permissions changed, registry entries added) that are made during the installation of a software

Answer 1

There is a programme called "sandboxie" You'll need to configure it once its installed for it to work properly. run sandboxie. drag and drop the installation file into the gui and watch it try to install. Sandboxie creates a log of everything that happens. While it redirects all of the exe - DLL - inf - scripts and everything else into a quarantine file instead. The SB GUI then lays out the file structure to all the intended installation locations.

Any download Im not too sure is legitimate, now gets downloaded and executed straight through SB's web browser feature. I can then check it all out and it never infects my system if it is naughty.

On the other hand...

If it was a online installer.exe that was executed in SB gui, youll now have a copy of everything that makes up the installer package. Place it all in a file on a USB, make a simple autorun.inf and .bat file with notepad++ to create ya own offline installer

Hope this helps...