is there a way to find out (without the use of a third party program) what applications have been run in a system running winxp pro?

for example, through the administrative tools, you can see which and when a service have started, stopped or crashed.

can i do something similar with the programs?

Have tried auditing under security? I believe you can add users and/or groups to log accesses to your program files.

yeah nice tool that ifotto

i think what vasilis is looking for more is something to show what apps have been used EVER on the pc am i right?

well... most apps need installing, but even after uninstalling they leave traces in program files folder, usually the top directory will stay, if its a game or someother app that has saves sometimes that info is left behind.

another, much quicker way is to look in the registry, anything that has been installed will be there, just about. it wont tell you when it was last used though.

there are apps that do this, some of the "net nanny" tools do it. i think i have a small freeware app that monitors programs usage, who was logged in when using, time date etc kind of info, ill look for it. but -- it came with a magazine i think so it could be anywhere!