ShareWatch Home Page

ShareWatch 1.0

ShareWatch allows you to see who is connected to a computer and what files they are accessing. Have you ever wondered why your hard drive or modem is active, but you aren't doing anything to cause it to be active? It is possible a remote user is accessing your computer. Have you ever had a file locked but you don't know why? ShareWatch can tell you if a network user is using the file and allows you to disconnect them so that you can edit/delete the file. Have you ever wanted to shutdown a computer, but don't want to drop people using the computer. ShareWatch will show you all resources in use by remote users.

Here are some features of ShareWatch...

Watch shares on local and remote servers.
Shows the users and computers that are connected to each share, along with what files are open.
Allows you to disconnect any file, user, computer, or share.
Address book lookup to show you the details about each user connected (this feature is turned off by default)
Computer lookup to show you both the computer name and IP address of the computers connected.
Can be run as a tray application.
Supports top-most and transparency.
Works on Windows Windows 95 - Windows 7.
Multithreaded to allow servers to be queried independently from each other while not blocking each other or the user interface.

What ShareWatch Can do...

ShareWatch only watches folders that are shared out using the Windows folder sharing feature. This is usually how people share files and printers with each other on a home or corporate network. It can watch the shares of local and remote Windows computers, assuming you have the correct permissions to watch shares on a computer. ShareWatch will show you the users connected and what files are in use by each user. It will also let you close files, disconnect users, and remove shares.

What ShareWatch Cannot do...

ShareWatch does not watch socket connections, pipes, or any other method of low-level communication. Most applications that communicate over the internet will use sockets (sometimes referred to as TCP, UDP, or IP). This includes applications like file/music swapping programs (i.e. Kazaa, WinMX, Morpheus, etc.), e-mail, web browsing (HTTP), instant messeging, chat, IRC, FTP, telnet, multiplayer games, etc. Any application on your computer is free to open a low-level connection on your computer and send/receive data.

ShareWatch is not a tool to guarantee the security of your computer. If you want a more full-featured, know-all, type security application, then I suggest you take a look at some of the many security programs on the market. Here are some I've heard of (this is not an endorsement for any of them)...

BlackICE

ZoneAlarm

SyGate Personal Firewall

McAfee Personal Firewall

Before you email me...

Yes, I know ShareWatch would be even better if it had logging. Pop-up up notifications and various list views would also be nice. I'd like to add these at some point, but I have no plans on doing so anytime soon. I have very little free time these days, and most of that time is spent on other projects. If you have other suggestions, feel free to pass them along.

Download the latest version here...

ShareWatch 1.0 (Windows 95 - Windows 7) [33k]

ShareWatch is completely free to use. You may not profit from the distribution of it, nor may you bundle it with another product. If you would like to link to ShareWatch, please do so by linking to this page (http://SteveMiller.net/ShareWatch)