Monday, 09 May 2011

Directory Monitor

Finally uploaded my Directory Monitor application!

* Monitor directories for file changes, modifications, deletions and new files.
* Monitor local directories or network shares (including hidden shares).
* Include/exclude filtering on files being monitored.
* Optionally execute an application when an event occurs.
* Quickly tell if a directory is available and being monitored.
* Balloon notifications whenever an event is fired.
* Auto updating, import/export and more.
* FREE!

Latest version 1.0.2.0 (2011/05/07)
Lots of new features with an improved UI.
More than likely the last release on .NET 3.5. I need to move to .NET 4.0 for certain performance features (such as memory mapped files) so that I can support really large log files.

Install it from here or check it out (with new screenshots) on my main website at DevEnterprise.NET

Update: Directory Monitor makes it on Softpedia with some sweet screenshots. It was also awarded the 100% clean award.

Update 2: Updated to optionally run an application when an event fires on a directory. The full path and file name gets passed to the app as well so you can use %1 and such inside batch files.

Update 3: Directory Monitor gets mentioned on My Digital Life.

Update 4: Directory Monitor gets mentioned on Life Rocks 2.0.

68 comments:

MartinW said...

Great app. I stumbled across it whilst looking for a freeware tool to monitor directory contents and e-mail me the changes.

Any chance you might make these enhancements? At basic level it would just be e-mailing the log file every so often (I could probably do this myself if I knew where the log was stored!?). More advanced would be the option to e-mail the actual files that appeared or changed as attachments to the mail. Even adding the ability to run a batch file whenever there are file changes would make this tool much more powerful.

Maybe you'll be releasing the source code at some point to allow others to improve on this useful tool...

Werner van Deventer said...

Hey Martin,

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try and add the ability to run a program when when an event occurs this weekend. I'll update this post and you should get the application update automatically. In the meantime if you want to know where the log file is stored it will be in the user application directory.

Example:
In Windows Vista: C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\DirectoryMonitor\LogBackup.txt

In Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\DirectoryMonitor\LogBackup.txt

Werner van Deventer said...

Released version 1.0.1.0 which has the capability of executing an application when an event occurs.

You can use a batch file and the full path with the file name will be passed into it so you can use %1 inside your script.

For emailing on a schedule I would recommend using the Task Scheduler to send the log file. To make your script more dynamic use %USERPROFILE%\DirectoryMonitor\LogBackup.txt when attaching the log file.

Some good options for command line emailing tools go to http://www.petri.co.il/send_mail_from_script.htm.

Hope this helps you out?

MartinW said...

Fast work! I will be able to try this out on Monday. Would it be easy to set it so that the event would only trigger the command if a certain amount of time has passed since the last trigger? This would save my sendmail script getting called many times at once for a burst of file activity, though I could probably control this in the script to a certain extent...

Thanks, will let you know how it goes.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Martin,

It's out of scope to schedule an application to run after an event is fired, however you can easily accomplish this with some basic batch file programming.

1. Create a batch file that creates a temp file that your mailing batch file could check for. This will prevent mails getting sent when no events have occurred:

notify.bat
@echo off
echo If this file is here then the log file will be e-mailed. > "%appdata%\DirectoryMonitor\maillog.tmp"


2. Create the batch file that sends an e-mail with the log file attached (but only if an event has occurred which called the batch file above and created the temp file):

sendlog.bat
@echo off
if not exist %appdata%\DirectoryMonitor\maillog.tmp goto :end
emailer /server:your.maileserver.com /to:you@mail.com /from:you@mail.com /subject:"Directory Monitor E-mail" /body:"Directory Monitor Log" /attachment:"%appdata%\DirectoryMonitor\LogBackup.txt"
del /s /q "%appdata%\DirectoryMonitor\maillog.tmp"
:end


3. Use the new feature in Directory Monitor to call notify.bat whenever a change happens in your selected directory.

4. Using Windows Task Scheduler, schedule sendlog.bat to run at an interval and e-mails will only be sent if an event occurred in Directory Monitor.

Note: The command line e-mailer I used in the example can be downloaded here.

MartinW said...

Brilliant this is just what I wanted. One problem with the parameter passing to the executed command - it doesn't handle spaces. For example %1 in my bat file comes out as:

D:\Profiles\martin\My

When it should continue with the rest of the "My Documents..." path.

Your Emailer is also great as its the first command-line tool of its type I have found that will work with Gmails TLS SMTP servers. It would be useful to allow its parameters to be specified from a file - like the list of attachments:

emailer ... /attachfiles:"c:\file list.txt"

Where c:\file list.txt is:
[i]c:\temp\1.txt
d:\profiles\martin\my documents\2.txt[/i]

How easy would this be? Admittedly I could probably create a wrapper script to achieve this too.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Martin,

Glad this works nicely for you. That's a weird scenario with %1? In the script you can enclose variables in quotes like I've done with %appdata% to ensure if there are spaces in the path the batch file still handles it. Eg: "%1" should include the spaces in the batch file where as using straight %1 will likely cut off at the first space. I will test this issue though when I get a chance.

NB: If you are using %1 as the input to a batch file it will be the full file path (including the file name) passed from Directory Monitor.

As for specifying attachments in a file, I could add this later but in the meantime you can separate multiple files using a semi-colon. Eg: /attachment:"C:\file1.txt;C:\file2.txt;file3.jpg" and all the files will be attached. But I see the benefit in managing the list externally like you would a message. I was going to allow a single argument with an XML file of sorts with all the mail information but I got lazy... Maybe in the future.

Once again, thanks for the feedback, I'm glad to hear what users think.

Werner van Deventer said...

Found the space issue you were talking about. It's actually an issue with the way command line applications interpret the arguments sent to them. Arguments are separated by a space so if you had spaces in your path then %1 would be up to the first space and %2 would be the second half until the next space etc.

To overcome this I enclose the path and file name in quotes if the path or name has spaces in it. You should therefore always handle it the argument in batch files as %1 without quotes. I have documented this known issue on the projects page:

"If you execute a batch file or PowerShell script when an event happens and you want to use the %1 to catch the file that was modified, dot not use quotes! Because batch files will treat anything between spaces as separate parameters the application will enclose the path and file name in quotes automatically if the path contains a space.

EG: If the path is C:\NoSpaces\File.txt then it will be used as is and %1 will contain the path and file name correctly. If the path is C:\With Spaces\File 1.txt then it will be passed as "C:\With Spaces\File 1.txt". If you've enclosed %1 in quotes the path will not work with file manipulation commands.

%1 is the correct usage.
"%1" is incorrect and will only work with paths containing no spaces."


Thanks for picking that one up, the latest version of Directory Monitor (1.0.1.1) has the fix in it so please check for updates in the application.

MartinW said...

Thanks Werner, it is working perfectly now!

Computers Have Ruined My Life said...

Wanted to try out Directory Monitor, but I get this error message - ""Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that assembly System.Data.Entity Version 3.5.0.0 be installed in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) first." I have .NET framework 3.5 installed - how do I fix this problem?

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi,

My last release was done after I had installed the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. This error has appeared on people's machines when installing from scratch (the auto updater seems to work fine) when SP1 is not installed.

To resolve this issue in the interim download and install the update from here. To check that you have the correct version installed go to SmallestDotNET.com, I will be using this on my site to determine the version before users download.

I will try and reproduce this issue myself and plan on resolving it without users having to install the service pack (if possible).

Thanks for the feedback, it really helps improve this application!

Anonymous said...

Hey Werner
About Directory Monitor. It's a great work. I like it.
Just one thing. It could be interesting to have the type of event (modification, deletion, new file, rename) in the second parameter.
So at the end we have %1 name of the file, and %2 event.
What do you think about that?

Didier

Werner van Deventer said...

Good idea Didier, actually left it out because I never thought it would be used... I'll get an update out first thing tomorrow.

UPDATE: I have uploaded the latest version (1.0.1.6) which will pass out a second argument which is the name of the event that occurred. This could be one of four values:
newfile
deleted
renamed
modified

Update from the UI or get the latest version here.

Anonymous said...

Hey Werner,

I have tested your last version 1.0.1.6 of Directory Monitor with the second argument (event), and it works well.
Many thanks for this quick evolution.

Didier

melvynadam said...

Hi,

Great app. Thanks. Are you continuing development of this tool? Are there any plans to build in a notification element so that users don't need to check the logs?

Werner van Deventer said...

Hey Melvyn,

Yes I do still keep Directory Monitor up to date but only with user requests.

There is a small element of notification involved such as the tray bubble that pops up when changes are detected. You can also execute an application of your choice when an event occurs. An example of sending an e-mail is available in the comments above.

Please let me know what kind of notification you are referring or or if there is something in particular you are looking to get implemented?

melvynadam said...

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I saw the comments detailing the usage of your other tool in order to send an email but it seemed quite convoluted and it's still not "integrated".

I was hoping for an RSS / email notification component built in.

Incidentally, I downloaded a few similar tools (paid-for and free) trying to find one which would meet my needs and this was the only one which reliably and accurately reported the details I wanted to see so thank you for making it and providing it to the world.

Rick said...

Great app! Very clean, very well done.

An enhancement request - I'm able to monitor changes to a mapped network drive, but I haven't been able to figure out how to monitor an FTP site. I've got another app that maps the FTP site, but I get an error when I try to add that drive (The request is not supported. Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070032) I've pasted the 'notify developers' text below.

Any chance of this functionality being included?

Thanks in advance,
Rick


Exception Details
System.ApplicationException: The request is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070032)
at System.Threading.ThreadPool.BindIOCompletionCallbackNative(IntPtr fileHandle)
at System.Threading.ThreadPool.BindHandle(SafeHandle osHandle)
at System.IO.FileSystemWatcher.StartRaisingEvents()
at System.IO.FileSystemWatcher.set_EnableRaisingEvents(Boolean value)
at DevEnterprise.Utils.DirectoryMonitor.DirectoryMonitorItem.SetupFileSystemWatcher(ISynchronizeInvoke syncObject, Boolean includeSubdirectories, Boolean watchDirectories)
at DevEnterprise.Utils.DirectoryMonitor.DirectoryMonitorItem..ctor(ISynchronizeInvoke syncObject, String directoryPath, Boolean checkExists, DirectoryMonitorTypes types, String executeApplication, Boolean includeSubdirectories)
at DevEnterprise.Utils.DirectoryMonitor.MainForm.ButtonBrowseClick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Rick,

Unfortunately the application was written to monitor network directories (private) because there just wasn't anything that could do it on the web. I can see great value in being able to monitor FTP directories as well though.

I am currently working on enhancements including being able to monitor directories that reside on non-MS operating systems. I will be sure to include the ability to monitor FTP directories as well.

Stay tuned!

Rick said...

I appreciate your quick response!

I'll stay tuned, I appreciate your efforts (and your well built, lightweight, and responsive app!)

Anonymous said...

Hi Werner,
This is a great app. One thing that I noticed in 1.0.1.8 is that the application to be executed disappears if the code is exited and restarted. Odd. It does save it in the txt configuration file. It appears to get erased on restart. Just FYI.

Larry

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Larry,

There was a bug in the parsing code that made the custom application setting disappear. I have fixed it and released a new version (1.0.1.9). You can update directly from the application.

Thanks for picking this up.

Werner

Anonymous said...

I believe that there is a bug within the program.

I had Directory Monitor monitoring a mapped network drive (e.g. Y:\somedirectory\subdirectory\monitoreddir). It seemed to be working for a while (not sure, maybe a day or so). I checked on it again and it appears that it had locked the directory so that not even the local administrator could access it within Windows Explorer (Access denied). In addition, the Security tab was unavailable when viewing the properties of the directory (in addition to the unavailability of the number of files, size, etc. that occurs when you do not have any access at all).

I then shut down Directory Monitor - it released the lock on the directory BUT THEN DELETED THE DIRECTORY and all the subfolders within the directory.

I recommend that you suspend downloads for Directory Monitor until this bug is worked out.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi,

I can assure you that Directory Monitor has no code to perform any changes to the file system and is purely used for monitoring directories for changes.

From the information that you provided it sounded like the directory was pending a deletion and therefore it was locked from all processes including admin changes. Directory Monitor will hold a lock on a directory because it relies on it telling the application when changes occur. This lock will prevent a directory from being removed/renamed etc.

I was able to reproduce this scenario quite easily though by using applications like Unlocker to force a deletion on another machine where I cannot unlock the applications holding it. When all locks are released, like when closing Directory Monitor across the network, the directory disappears without warning.

My guess is that someone on your network attempted to remove the directory and the process could only complete once the lock from Directory Monitor was released.

Regards,
Werner

Anonymous said...

Hi Werner,
Thanks for the Directory Monitor app. It appears to work well and monitors a shared network drive for me. An enhancement (if possible) that I would appreciate would be if the app could tell me who has accessed or changed my files on this shared directory. That way I could chase down the culprit who has tampered with one of my files. Thanks. Craig

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Craig,

That is a great idea for an enhancement. It does however require quite a bit of work from my side as the framework does not provide this functionality by default.

There are some other options available to you though to catch users meddling with your files.

1. How to audit user access of files, folders, and printers in Windows XP. This will work on all versions of Windows though and you can check the logs whenever you get notified of changes.

2. Download this great app called Net Share Monitor. This monitors all your network shares for access/modifications and immediately notifies you when someone is connected to your machine. It's a bit cumbersome with log files but does the job quite nicely.

Until I get this enhancement in Directory Monitor, I hope these other options will sort out your current situation in the meantime.

Craig said...

Thanks for the quick response Werner.
Just to be clear the shared files are not on my PC. The shared area is on the LAN server. I only have access to the shared drives as a client. Thanks again. Craig.

steph99 said...

just what I was looking for!
Thanks so much!

Only one single thing I cannot seem to figure out correctly:
my batch file is executed when a new file is added: great!
Now DM is supposed to add the full path+file name to the batch file right? in my batch file I added "attach:1%" (wihout the quotes): no love. :(
when I do a "batchfile somepath/somefilename" on a command prompt it works...??
I am using emailer btw. which is great, too!

Any Ideas?

Please?

Thanks so much for your work. I tried at least 15 approaches: nothing worked the way it should. Your solution is soooo close!

stephan

steph99 said...

Hi again,

little mistake in my post above:
it should read: "attach:%1" (and NOT "attach:1%").

Again, any hints would be much appreciated!

Stephan

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Stephan,

Everything you are doing sounds correct so I'm not sure where to start looking. If you are using the Emailer in your example the correct syntax would be /attachment:%1

There are two specific batch files that I use when testing the functionality of Directory Monitor. Add them as the application to execute for a specific directory and then trigger a change.

1. Will print the arguments being sent to the batch file from Directory Monitor.
------------------------------
rem TestArgs.bat

@echo off

echo File: %1
echo Event: %2
echo.

pause
------------------------------

2. Will send a basic e-mail attaching the file that an event occurred on.
------------------------------
rem SendMail.bat

@echo off

C:\Emailer.exe /server:mail.domain.com /to:youremail@yourdomain.com /from:youremail@yourdomain.com /subject:"Testing Attachment" /body:"Check the attachment..." /attachment:%1

pause
------------------------------

Give these a try and check if they yield the correct results for you.

Ade said...

Hi there,

Just come across this program, fantastic, loving the range of features.

Do you know if there's any way it can start iconized/hidden when it's launched?

Adrian

Cless Alvein said...

cool application. Thank you

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Adrian,

I have added an option to start Directory Monitor minimized to the tray. The latest version is 1.0.1.10

Ade said...

That is fantastic.. how can I update?

Thanks

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Adrian,

Right click on the tray icon and then click Check for Updates, or from the main form click Help->Check for Updates.

The application does check for updates automatically.

Ade said...

Hi again,

Just got the message:

object reference not set to an instance of an object. Please report this to the application developer.

when I tried to update.

Adrian

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Adrian,

I would suggest just export your directories and installing again from here, I spent most of the day yesterday trying to reproduce this error but I can't get it. The update system hasn't changed in ages but the test certificate has, I'm waiting for our proxy to clear the cache so I can try on another network. I'll keep you posted...

melvynadam said...

I got exactly the same error but just downloaded the new version and installed it on top of the existing one. Seems to have worked out fine.

Unknown said...

Hi! I've a problem with Directory Monitor because I can't see the balloon tips although they're setted in settings.

I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with the correct NET Framework... any idea? =)

Thanks in advance,
Gabriele
;)

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Gabriele,

The balloons usually don't show when they are disabled in the registry. Directory Monitor does try and enable the registry setting when you check the option but this is likely to be the area that is at fault.

Check that the value EnableBalloonTips exists under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and is set to 1.

There is more information about this here if you want to do some extra reading.

Hope this helps you out.

Regards,
Werner

Unknown said...

Hi Werner,

Great app (1.0.1.17):)

Just one recommendation/request....

Would it be possible to be notified who made the reported change ?

Thanks in advance.

Dean.

Unknown said...

Hi Werner,

Great app (1.0.1.17):)

Just one recommendation/request....

Would it be possible to be notified who made the reported change ?

Thanks in advance.

Dean.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Dean,

This is the second time someone has asked me for this, guess it's high time I get it in the app :)

Craig asked me for this a while back and I'll quote my response to him:

"That is a great idea for an enhancement. It does however require quite a bit of work from my side as the framework does not provide this functionality by default.

There are some other options available to you though to catch users meddling with your files.

1. How to audit user access of files, folders, and printers in Windows XP. This will work on all versions of Windows though and you can check the logs whenever you get notified of changes.

2. Download this great app called Net Share Monitor. This monitors all your network shares for access/modifications and immediately notifies you when someone is connected to your machine. It's a bit cumbersome with log files but does the job quite nicely.

Until I get this enhancement in Directory Monitor, I hope these other options will sort out your current situation in the meantime."


Unfortunately I have been pressed for time to work on Directory Monitor so I haven't got it in yet. I want to make some major enhancements to it and release version 2 in the near future but I will however try get this into the current release as soon as I get some extra time. I'll post the update on this blog article when it becomes available. You can subscribe to these comments using an RSS reader.

Thanks for your comment!

Unknown said...

Awesome tool, thanks! Useful options for me would be "Minimize to system tray" and "Start on Windows startup".

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your comment, I'll be sure to get those options in the next release.

Werner

Andy said...

Thanks Werner. Really useful for me also would be 1.a search/filter box for existing results, so you could quickly drill down to see if certain text occurs in any result. 2. filter on balloon tips, if you want to capture all changes but only want to be notified on particular changes. 3. Periodical balloon tip digest to show totals every say 5 minutes, e.g. I move 100 files from one folder to another on a network share, the balloon tips appear one by one for ages after the events have happened, very annoying!

AppsByAaron said...

LOVE This software!! Is there a way I can log users or machines along with the actions? That would help even more. :)

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Aaron,

Glad you like it. Dev has been pretty quiet as it takes up quite a lot of my time these days. I have actually figured out a way to log the users that make the change, problem is it's not very reliable and you have to be an admin on any remote machine that you are logging to get that kind of info.

Never-the-less, it works well enough and if one particular file bothers you you can always check the event logs (assuming you have turned on the correct auditing). All of this is quite a mission considering MS won't log all access to files since there is constant IO happening already and it would kill any machine.

I've had many requests on this and will be working on making the change. I've got a backlog of feature requests and I'll probably do one last big release before I call it a day.

I'll be sure to post any updates here when it becomes available.

Werner

Miguel Sanz said...

Hi Werner, good app.!

How to monitoring only some extensions?

Thank you, regards from Spain.
Miguel.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Miguel,

Development has pretty much stopped for Directory Monitor v1.0.x I will be releasing v2.0 sometime when I actually get some time to myself.

Your suggestion is really easy to implement since I already have an exclusion list. I will consider adding it into the old version quite soon.

Regards,
Werner

Stephan Bartl said...

Hi Werner,
Thank you for this good piece of software!! If allowed I would want to report two bugs, though.
The first is a BIG BUG: When a directory with files inside of it is deleted (together with the files), then the (automatic) deletion of the included files is not detected or logged -> and therefore the program to start is not triggered.
The second is only a small bug: When a file is renamed and the path contains spaces, then the new path/name is split up in multiple command line arguments. I guess that there are just quotes missing?
Regards, Stephan

Jeremy said...

Hi Werner

First, let me say thank you very much for making this app available to all of us!! Using some crafty batch scripting I have been able to do some pretty awesome things with it.

A quick (I would think) feature request: can you implement a way to shut-off logging altogether? I really don't need it, and with the number of files I'm processing, the logging window just gets filled up really quickly. Now that I'm thinking about it, just updating the status bar with the current log info would be nice. Either way, I love the app and can't wait to see what version 2 brings.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi,

Just discovered a bunch of items in my inbox that I never replied to.

Stephan: The first bug you are referring to is probably because of a setting to ignore or rather cleanout entries. These will also not be triggered because they are no longer valid but I can see the concern with scripts that rely on this feature. As for the second bug, this is a known issue and I left it this way so that the script writer can handle it manually. I've highlighted this issue on the projects page under Known Issues.

Jeremy: That sounds like a good idea. The logging is offset and pluggable so separate from the triggers so it wouldn't be hard for me to turn it off via an option or perhaps have a 'max length' or 'purge' setting which I've been meaning to put in there. It sucks to have to manually clean the log all the time so I'll look into finding the time to release this.

Jeremy said...

Thanks Werner. While logging isn't necessary for my application, I could see why having a fixed length log would be useful-if for nothing else just to see that the application is doing something and to see which files it is processing.

I guess you can consider this a vote for the max length option.

Tobi said...

Brilliant work. I'm using it combined with a kix-Script (www.kixtart.org) that triggers blat (http://www.blat.net/) and other things. It's so powerful this way. Would be nice to have Directory Monitor as a Windows Service. As far as I understand it only works when a user is logged in.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hey Tobi,

Yup, unfortunately it only works when logged in. I'm busy working on a 'Pro' version that runs as a service (many people have requested this) and will also let you know who made the changes if it's over a network.

Thanks for informing me of your use case, really interesting what some people use it for. I want to take a hard look at how the execution works and possibly introduce a simpler, pluggable interface. KiXtart Looks interesting, I wish I heard about Blat before I wrote a managed command-line emailer (Command Line E-mailer) but they need to make a 64-bit version.

Alas, the constraints of a day job and the silly season is preventing me from getting any updates out there... Going on holiday soon so stay tuned.

Anonymous said...

It's great - but worked only for a few days. Now when I start it a message box says the applications requirements are checked (with internet connection graphic), then another message box says it cannot be started and I can click 'Details' there and that opens a longer list where the main news seems to be that the application cause a windows side-by-side error.
Regards - Dieter

Werner van Deventer said...

Please post the error or email the details to me directly so I can try and resolve this issue.

Cedric said...

Great software, thanks !

I'm trying to use the 'global exclude patterns' to avoid monitoring of temporary files created by MS Office (something like ~?abcd.docx), but could'nt make it work.

I tried :
~*.docx
~$*.docx
?$*.docx
...

Do I need to escape the ~ character ?
How can I do that ?

Thanks in advance.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi Cedric,

The wild card functionality has been fixed up in 1.0.2.4. Please update directly from the application or download the latest version at http://www.brutaldev.com/page/Directory-Monitor.aspx

Cedric said...

Hi Werner,

Filtering works well with this latest version.

Thank you for fixing this issue so quickly ...

TEA-Time said...

Hi Werner,

I was using an older version of Directory Monitor (I think maybe v1.0.1.8..?) and it ran under a limited user account on Windows 7 64-bit just fine. After updating to v1.0.3.1, it now requires an Administrator account to run, which makes it impossible to run under that limited account now.

Is there any way around this?
Thanks!

Werner van Deventer said...

Since version 1.0.2.5 I have provided a way to avoid the elevation request when running Directory Monitor. This option is of course to be used at your own risk, as much as I try not to use resources that require admin rights, sometimes they do happen. 99% of the time it's actually fine though so will be removed in a future release.

To make Directory Monitor run under the whatever privilege the user starting it has, just use the /nouac option (case sensitive). The simplest way to do this is to create a shortcut that passes in the option like:
"C:\Program Files\DevEnterprise.NET\Directory Monitor\DirectoryMonitor.exe" /nouac
Shortcut example image

TEA-Time said...

Great! That worked.

Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

I'm atrying to send an attachment - it sends an email but never the attachment- here's my code:

emailer /server:smtp.x.ca /to:x@x.com /from:x@x.com /subject:"Directory Monitor E-mail" /body:"Directory Monitor Log" /attach:%1

the monitored directir is D:\z\User01. Whena file is added, I get an email but the attachment is never included. Also, no spaces in the filename or dir/fodler name eitehr.

Werner van Deventer said...

Hi,

"attach" is an invalid argument for Emailer.exe You need to use "attachment".

Here is the argument list from the built in usage help:

I would recommend using the "confirm" argument is useful to catch these kinds of argument errors during testing.

Anonymous said...

So we just got a new MFP in the office and are using the ability to save incoming faxes as a PDF to a folder instead of printing things out so we can save paper and toner. Problem is you never know when a fax comes in. Thought your program would be a great solution. Installed it, set the directory, but when I add files I dont get any kind of notification...what am I doing wrong?

Werner van Deventer said...

Please direct all queries to support@deventerprise.net. If you don't leave an email address (Anonymous) then I have no way of getting back to you!