Looking for Change Notifier for File Servers? You’re in the right place. Netwrix Auditor Free Community Edition includes file server change notifications — plus a whole lot more.

Free community edition

Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers

Freeware tool that keeps you aware of changes and data access on your file servers

"Incredible freeware! Indispensable software for anyone who considers himself a competent Windows sysadmin."

Nedeljko Visnjic,
Spiceworks Community

How long does it take you to figure out what happened on your file servers?

The free edition of Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers delivers visibility into what’s happening on your Windows-based file servers. This free file server software tracks changes made to files, folders, shares and permissions; detects deleted and newly created files and folders; and logs file server access attempts. This file server audit tool collects and analyzes log events on file server and sends daily activity summaries that detail all read attempts and changes that were made during the last 24 hours, with the before and after values.

See what changed

Shows what file server objects and permissions were added, modified or removed, with the before and after values.

Monitor data access attempts

Reports on file, folder and share access attempts, including whether each attempt was successful.

Automate auditing

Consolidates data from various sources and emails daily activity summaries about file server changes and data access.

Increase efficiency

Provides meaningful data about every change and access event, eliminating the need to manually analyze mountains of native log data.

Save your IT budget

Has no expiration date and is available whenever you need it absolutely for free.

Regular monitoring of data read attempts and changes on your file servers is critical for security. If you use native auditing tools, you’ll spend a lot of time and effort poring through cryptic logs on a file server, and then the next server and the next one, trying to produce human-readable reports on what exactly happened. This free file server software makes your security monitoring routine more efficient by automating the tedious task of going through each event log on a file server, one server at a time. The free edition of Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers is file server monitoring software that will keep you aware of file server activity in a timely and convenient manner by providing daily reports on data read attempts and each modification, deletion or addition of file server objects and permissions.

Awareness versus Complete Visibility

Once you start using Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers, you will get full functionality for free for 20 days. After that, you can either activate the Free Community Edition or apply a commercial license. The table below highlights the differences between the Netwrix Auditor Community Edition free file server auditing tool and the standard edition of the product.

Free Community Edition Standard Edition

Functionality	Netwrix Auditor Free Community Edition	Netwrix Auditor Standard Edition
Reporting on what files, folders, shares and permissions were modified, deleted or added
Before and after values for all modifications
Reporting on file, folder and share access attempts, both successful and failed
Daily activity summary sent automatically to a single recipient
"What," "when" and "where" details for each reported event
"Who" details for each reported event
Predefined reports with filtering, sorting and export options
Email subscriptions to scheduled audit reports with the ability to choose reports, recipients and reporting frequency
Advanced cross-system audit reporting
State-in-time reports on file server configuration
File analysis
User behavior and blind spot analysis
Out-of-the-box compliance reports mapped to specific regulatory standards (PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, FISMA/NIST800-53 and more)
Overview dashboards
Google-like search of audit data
Alerts on threat patterns
Long-term storage of audit data
Role-based access control
Optional lightweight, non-intrusive mode of data collection used for traffic compression
Single installation that handles multiple file shares, each with its own unique settings

"Thanks for the use of your freebie. It worked as you said it should."

Ralph Hanahan,
Denmark Technical College

System Requirements

Deployment of Netwrix Auditor for Windows File Servers is very straightforward. Below is a summary of the minimumsystem requirements.

Hardware

Processor:

2 cores

Memory:

4GB RAM

Disk space:

100 GB – System drive
100 GB – Data drive (Long-Term Archive and SQL Server)

Screen resolution:

Minimum 1280 x 1024
Recommended 1920 x 1080 or higher

Software

Operating System:

Windows Desktop OS (64-bit): Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10
Windows Server OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012/2012 R2, and Windows Server 2016

.NET Framework:

Any .NET Framework that goes with your OS: 3.5 SP1, 4.0, 4.5, or 4.6

Installer:

Windows Installer 3.1 and above