By Bryan Keadle

ZENworks has a great method for making timed log entries. But what if you have non-ZENworks processes that you'd like to track?

Here's a command line tool that will easily generate log entries with a date and time stamp. I'll often use these in my batch file to identify "active" scripts. When it comes time for some housecleaning, you can determine the batch files that are safe to delete if the associated log file doesn't have any recent entries. For example:

timelog x:\logs\BATCHFILETRAK.LOG %~f0: used by %UserName% on %ComputerName%

would append this logged entry to a file, x:\logs\BatchFileTrak.log:

02/08/2005 03:30: x:\Example.cmd: used by BKeadle on BKEADLE-IS778

Of course, there are many other uses for such a utility: for tracking logins, automated processes, etc.