Is there an Installer Analyser tool that can list what Registry Keys will be created?

Posted by EvoGamer on Super User See other posts from Super User or by EvoGamer
Published on 2011-01-04T01:31:06Z Indexed on 2011/01/04 1:55 UTC
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Windows

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registry

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installer

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analyzer

I can think of 3 ways to achieve my goal:

Create a clean VPC, install a given piece of software, and compare the before and after states.
Somehow reverse-engineer the installer.
Somehow redirect the output of the installer in question so that all registry calls and copy/move file commands are recorded, but not executed.

The first option can be done manually, or potentially automated, but I feel it's rather OTT for my needs. The second could cause all sorts of licencing issues, not to mention it may not always return a correct result. Also, without delving into hex editing, I can't think of a way that it would be possible to do manually (some installers - eg Anti-Virus software - may react unfavourably on automated attempts to investigate the installer).

The third option shows the most promise, although if the first could be stripped down into a lightweight throwaway environment, it would work pretty much the same way. However, I'm not sure how to do it. So my question is:

What tools are available (if any) and/or how could I find out this information manually?

I'm not looking to reverse-engineer anything (if I can help it), but I just want to know exactly what changes are being made to my PC by a given piece of software.

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