Monitoring access to your shared files on network

2 Mar

ShareMonitor snapshot

I have written a program (named ShareMonitor) that allows you to monitor any access to your network shared files.  When a user remotely opens shared files on your computer, application detects it and displays information such as who opened it, when it was opened, duration, etc. about that file. All details will be logged and can be saved to .CSV or .XML files for further analysis.
You can also disconnect any active connection whenever you want.

For more details and source code, visit ShareMonitor’s Code Project page.

Download ShareMonitor (from Softpedia)

Update:

Since it was published, many articles have been written by experts to introduce and recommend ShareMonitor. Here you can find some of them:

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21 Responses to “Monitoring access to your shared files on network”

  1. Lutz March 29, 2011 at 11:58 am #

    Hi,

    I am really happy to see that you have created this tool. I am searching for this since weeks…. the only problem for me is:

    I run a mac osx 10.6.7 with a linkstation duo via dyndns (access via https/s-ftp)…

    Do you have any idea where I can find a similar solution for my set up?

    Thank you very much in advance
    Lutz

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari April 3, 2011 at 1:53 am #

      Hi,
      Unfortunately ShareMonitor is windows compatible only.

      Reply
  2. Mohammed Nawab June 22, 2011 at 10:47 am #

    This application is very helpful for our organization. Thanks for your efforts.

    1). Is it possible that this application can continuously save captured data in a database instead of manually saving it to CSV format.
    2). Can we link it to any database for instance MySQL

    Appreciate your help and support on this matter.

    Thanks & Regards,
    Mohammed Nawab

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari June 25, 2011 at 1:56 pm #

      Hi Mohammed,

      Thank you for your interest in ShareMonitor.
      Both requirements are possible.
      Since ShareMonitor is freeware, you can get the source code from Code Project and modify it as you wish. however, please don’t change its original name (ShareMonitor) and author (Abdollah Zawari).
      Or, contact me if you want me to do it for you.

      Good luck

      Reply
  3. Ian July 26, 2011 at 10:29 pm #

    I’m really stoked about the potential for this! Would it be at all possible to have it report the computer name and/or ip address, in addition to “user name”? My problem is that the user name that shows up on my win7 network is the same regardless of which computer it is (HomeGroupUser$). The unique IP and/or Computer name would be most helpful in this case!

    Ian

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari July 27, 2011 at 1:25 am #

      Hi Ian,

      Hostname is what you are looking for.
      ShareMonitor doesn’t show it by default but you can simply add this column just like other columns.

      Reply
  4. Manoj July 10, 2012 at 3:52 pm #

    Dear Abdollah,
    Sorry but the .exe is giving error “the application failed to initialise properly.”

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari July 13, 2012 at 1:32 pm #

      Hi,
      It’s been successfully tested on Windows XP and 7 (32 and 64 bit).
      You must have administrator privileges to run ShareMonitor.

      Reply
  5. zamir July 18, 2012 at 1:01 pm #

    hi.. i’m trying to run this on one of our file servers… it keeps saying error: value was either too small or too large for int32.

    how do i get your software to work?

    Reply
    • zamir July 18, 2012 at 1:05 pm #

      also, is there any way i can resize the columns? i’m unable to see the complete file/folder path

      Reply
      • Abdollah Zawari July 19, 2012 at 12:06 pm #

        Hi,
        It is not tested on windows servers.
        You may download the source code and debug it to find the problem.
        You are also free to manipulate the source code as you wish.

      • zamir July 19, 2012 at 12:18 pm #

        thanks. I shall try that.

  6. http://tinyurl.com/agrapotts53953 January 11, 2013 at 7:35 pm #

    I really seem to go along with everything that has been composed in “Monitoring access to your
    shared files on network C# Tips”. Thanks a lot for all of the actual details.
    Thanks for your time-Trudy

    Reply
  7. Daniel Kill March 15, 2013 at 10:02 pm #

    This is great, but I have no idea how to modify the source so it automatically saves to a log file, can you please do this. I very much like this software other than that.

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari March 15, 2013 at 10:22 pm #

      Sorry, I’m too busy to spend any time on this.
      It’s not that difficult to make such change…

      Reply
  8. T Paparountas May 23, 2013 at 7:59 pm #

    bravo for the software
    how about putting a donation button to stimulate you to work on this a bit more?

    Reply
  9. mamer January 4, 2014 at 9:00 pm #

    what a great program!!!!!
    but:
    I have windows 2003 server with a share folder and i’cant get any information…
    any idea?

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari January 4, 2014 at 11:07 pm #

      I have not tested it on Windows 2003 Server but I’ve heard that it doesn’t work on Win 2003 and you have to make some changes to make it working.

      Reply
  10. mamer January 4, 2014 at 9:04 pm #

    it will be possible to enter the specific folder you want to monitoring?
    Like a label with “Enter the directory to watch (localhost or a directory in server): “

    Reply
    • Abdollah Zawari January 4, 2014 at 11:09 pm #

      It monitors all shared folders. However, it would be possible to add a filter feature to show specific folder(s) only.

      Reply
  11. Tyen Dewvale March 11, 2016 at 4:07 am #

    amazing program but 3 futures are missing a lot. 1st is to alert (sound + message pop up) when shares are accessed. 2nd option to start with the system as service, 3rd option to automatically log access on txt or csv file.

    Reply

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