Track When Program Installed

Question

Is it possible to set an audit policy to track when a program has been installed or uninstalled? Not using MSI installer at the moment.

Answer 1

No. On Windows, an installer is just an ordinary Windows program, it doesn't generate audit log entries automagically.

However, you can enable auditing for folder (or registry key) creation in the %ProgramFiles% folder and the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall registry branch (regedit, right-click, Permissions). In both cases, the auditing settings are hidden under Advanced -> Auditing.