Monitoring File Activities

Purpose of the application A program running under Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 that will monitor the user’s file activities and save them to a database for access through an interface. Features 1. Application should be running in the background with an icon on the taskbar that can be used to trigger the user-interface. o Left clicking on the icon provides the main interface; o Right clicking on the icon provides settings and possibility to exit application. 2. Settings allow user to choose which file formats that the application should monitor (*.docx, *.xls, *.jpg, etc). Settings must be saved for the next time the application is started. 3. Monitors file activities of the user while running in background. Detects when files are open (e.g: user displays content of file on screen), is being modified (content of file is being written to.), is closed (is not being displayed on screen anymore). o Open to different techniques of monitoring so long it is effective and not resource intensive. o As a reference, see sample code from Microsoft that does the same task through the use of a minifilter driver: [login to view URL] . However, preference is not to use the sample codes to avoid licensing issues but willing to discuss if no other choice. 4. Upon file activities, save the information to a local database. o If no entry of the file exists in database, save the following.  File name  File size  File location. E.g: • Local: c:\folder\filelocation • Network: \\servername\folder\filelocation  Date/time  Transaction type: open, modify, close. o If file already exists in database, modify entry in database to keep stats of the number of times the file has been opened, modified, closed. o Preferred detailed database structure will be provided. 5. Monitors file activities of the user while running in background. Detects when files are moved or deleted. Upon detection, update database accordingly: o Move: Update file location in database. o Delete: Delete file entry in database. 6. Main interface (accessible by left-clicking on the application’s icon on the taskbar) should list content by doing queries to the database. o The listing should show file name and other data stored in the database. o User must be able to click on the file to open it. o Parameters for the queries (SQL query) will be provided. o An example would be to list the last 10 files that were opened recently, and allow the user to open them by clicking on the file.