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I have often been asked if it's possible for Windows to "watch" a given file and perform an action if the file is modified. There hasn't been a built-in provision in Windows to do this, except in the sense that you could write a kernel-level file system filter to trap such actions.
Well, the wait is finally over. XTWare has created a free service called FileNotify that traps events on specific directories and performs an action when anything is changed or modified.
FileNotify is a lightweight program: It's a single executable that runs as a system service. There is, however, no installer -- it needs to be registered by hand, but it is easy enough to remove as well. Once set up, you can create a list of directories (with a supplied editor application) that watches for any of the following actions: file creation or modification, deleting files, modifying attributes or names (including long filenames) and changing security tokens. You can use any of these actions to trigger a command-line action, such as a batch file or an .EXE.
The program logs its actions to a text file that, by default, is FileNotify.Log (located in the directory that FileNotify itself is running in).
The program also checks directories recursively -- you can point it at a top-level directory and ask it to watch all files or folders under that directory.
Be warned that if one of the actions triggered by a file change involves modifying a file in one of those watched directories, it can create a race condition. Also, whenever a file is changed, FileNotify waits for a full second of inactivity on that file before attempting to perform any actions on its own. It does this because sometimes when a file is changed, the Last Modified attribute is updated multiple times. The delay allows all of the changes to "settle" before action is taken.
Finally, FileNotify cannot monitor activity on a single file, but you can work around this by using a batch file with an input parameter (i.e., mybatchfile.bat %1) as the on-change action. The first line of the batch file can filter for a specific file like this:
If "%1"=="filename.fil" goto myaction
Serdar Yegulalp is editor of the Windows Power Users Newsletter. Check it out for the latest advice and musings on the world of Windows network administrators -- and please share your thoughts as well!
