New WatchDirectory beta

We just released a new WatchDirectory beta for version 4.5.9.

See this forum post for the download link.

The beta has one bugfix and one new feature.

The plugin to "launch programs" did not set the WD_REASON variable for new folders properly (it was set to DIREW instead of DIRNEW). This has been fixed - thanks for reporting this, Mark.

A new feature in the WD Control Center allows you to Find (and select) tasks. Use CTRL+F (or the View -> Find menu) to find tasks. This can be very helpful if you have a lot of tasks to manage.

GMail as your SMTP server

WatchDirectory v4.7

The work-around described in this post will soon be obsolete. The new beta for WatchDirectory v4.7 implements secure SMTP connections, see this blogpost

GMail requires secure connections

If you want to configure WatchDirectory to use GMail as its SMTP server, you will find that currently WatchDirectory does not support secure (TLS/STARTTLS) connections for email. To work around this, you will need to run another program (stunnel) to "wrap" WatchDirectory's connection to GMail. WatchDirectory will then connect to stunnel, which will connect to gmail.

Download / Configure stunnel

Download stunnel-4.xx-installer.exe (I tested with version 4.26) and run the installer. Install stunnel to the directory C:\Stunnel.

Inside the c:\Stunnel directory create a text file called gmailsmtp.txt with the following content (8 lines).

; SMTP configuration for Gmail
output = SMTPgmail.log
taskbar = no
cert = stunnel.pem
client = yes
[ssmtp]
accept = 10.0.0.1:8025
connect = smtp.gmail.com:465

Change 10.0.0.1 to your computer's IP address or name. Do not use "localhost" or 127.0.0.1 as that won't work.

Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and navigate to the stunnel install directory (CD C:\Stunnel). Enter the following 2 commands to run stunnel as a Windows Service:

stunnel -install gmailsmtp.txt
net start stunnel

Configure WatchDirectory

Now you need to configure WatchDirectory's Email Settings to connect to stunnel.

• Your SMTP server: enter the same name or IP address you entered in gmailsmpt.txt
• Port: 8025
• Authentication: Login
• Userid: your gmail address (john@gmail.com)
• Password: your gmail password

Now press the "Test" button. If you configured everything correctly, a test email will be sent. This test email will also show up inside your gmail account in the "Sent Mail" folder.

Further Reading

Configure GMail
WatchDirectory's SMTP Settings

Last Access Time on Vista

Just a quick note about Windows Vista (and probably Win2008 and Win7).

WatchDirectory's File Age monitoring method can detect "old files" based on their "Last Access Time" (the last time the file is opened). This timestamp is maintained on NTFS volumes when the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
is set to zero or does not exist.

Windows versions before Vista defaulted this setting to zero, so the Last Access timestamp was maintained for files on NTFS volumes. To improve file system performance, Microsoft disabled Last Access recording on Vista.

If you want to detect "old files" based on their Last Access time, please make sure this registry setting is set to zero.

More information:
http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archive/2006/11/07/disabling-last-access-time-in-windows-vista-to-improve-ntfs-performance.aspx

Monitor Huge Directories for Changes

Just a few quick tips if you want to detect new, changed or deleted files in *huge* folders.

The most important setting (performance wise) in WatchDirectory is the Monitoring Method. You can select between several methods, but only the "Fast" method is independent of the size of the monitored directory. The other three methods work by scanning the directory for changes - large directories take more time and memory to process.
The "Fast" monitoring method doesn't need to scan the directory - Windows will inform the task of the exact change that happened.

If you can not use the "Fast" method, make sure to exclude all subfolders you do not want to monitor. Also filter out unneeded files and/or directories.
If you have the choice between "exclude sub-folders" and "filter", the optimum way (performance) is to exclude subfolders. An excluded subfolder is never scanned for changes. The filter events settings are applied at a much later stage - after the directories are scanned.

Even if you do use the "Fast" monitoring method, in some cases WatchDirectory will actually "scan" the directory. This happens when you

• Select Fire FILENEW/DIRNEW events for all files at startup or When starting up, check for missed events on the Other Settings window.
• Select Trigger for all files and subdirectories below the renamed directory on the Events to detect window.

I hope this post helps you understand the effect of the options you select in WatchDirectory.

WatchDirectory 4.5.8

New Release: WD 4.5.8

A few days ago we released WatchDirectory v4.5.8. This is a free upgrade for all version 4 customers. Just install this version "on top" of your current install so it will keep your tasks and settings.

What's New   Download

File Age Monitoring Method

WatchDirectory Professional can detect files and directories based on their age (how old they are). This allows you, for example, to delete files older than 7 days using the Delete Files plugin. Or to send an email for those old files to help you remember to "process them".

An innocent option

When you configure WD to use the "File Age Monitoring Method", one of the options you can select is Remember triggered files. If your task sends an email for "old files", you will want to select this option as it will prevent multiple email messages for the same file.

However, if you configure a task that will delete, move or rename the old file (the original "old" file does not exist anymore), make sure you do not select this option. The "remember triggered files" option stores info (filename, timestamp) into the history database for this task and this is totally unnecessary if the detected file is gone. While the history database will "auto cleanup", this file age info can use a lot of diskspace (for large directories) and cause your task to run slower than needed.

Customer testimonial - CAMP Systems

Christopher Utter (CAMP Systems) made my day:

WatchDirectory Pro is by far the best money I have ever spent on a utility.

Your support is awesome, you patch bugs and offer new features free of charge all the time. Your product just out-performs many other products I have tested with a much higher pricetag. So Thank you for your efforts. I have been able to automate dozens of tasks using the pro version of watch directory and it has saved me many man hours in scripting other solutions.

Please keep producing software solutions as you are quickly becoming my favorite software vendor.

Thanks for the nice words Chris.

Backup your settings

Backup your WatchDirectory Tasks

So you have setup your tasks in WatchDirectory and they work exactly the way you want. Perhaps now is a good time to backup your tasks because somewhere in the future, Your Computer Will Fail!

The easiest way to create a backup is to stop all tasks (including the System.Mail task if it is running) and select the menu-option
"File -> Backup..."
This creates a ZIP archive with all files found in your "Task Directory". The "Task Directory" is where most of your settings are stored, you can explore your Task Directory using the menu option "Tools -> Explore Task Directory".
Alternatively, you can use your favorite backup program to backup your task directory.

Above, I say "most of your settings". The things that are not stored there (and thus, are not included in the backup) are:

• Your batch files and other (vb) scripts that you may be using with WatchDirectory's Run a Batch File tasks
• Your How to Run settings
  Especially your Windows Service settings. If you manually changed them, for example to run as a different user, you should write these settings down somewhere. See Further Reading below for more information.

Further Reading

Here are a few earlier related blogposts that touch this same subject:
Move WatchDirectory to another computer
Move your Task Directory

WatchFTP customer - Idonix

Idonix, a custom software development company specialising in show control systems, was engaged by a major UK broadcaster to provide data integration and graphics automation systems for their 2008 US Presidential Election coverage.

One of the requirements was to download and process substantial quantities of election result data from an Associated Press ftp server. Rather than write our own ftp synchronisation software, we found an existing product that fitted our needs exactly - WatchFTP. It was extremely straightforward to configure WatchFTP to download files as they were updated by the Associated Press systems, and not only that - we were able to use the Run a batch script action to bulk load each updated file into our SQL Server database.

However when we arrived at the customer's site we had an unforeseen problem... (read more...)

WatchDirectory 4.5.7

Hello all, Wishing you a happy new year!

Yesterday we released WatchDirectory v4.5.7, another free upgrade for all version 4 customers.
This new release has an important issue fixed for the wdPostman (System.Mail) program, the component responsible for sending emails. Previous versions sometimes had long (up to 30 seconds) delays between each message.

To Install

• Download the latest version from our website
• Stop all WatchDirectory tasks, including the "System.Mail" component
• Install the new release "on top" of your old release so it will see your tasks and settings.

WatchFTP 2.0 released

WatchFTP 2.0

A new version for WatchFTP is available.

This version has 2 major improvements:

• A new "Task History" window that shows you all downloaded files and messages
• An improved "download method". Version 2 will automatically download files in 2 fases:
  • Fase 1: detect files. WatchFTP scans the FTP server for new and changed files. All detected files are recorded in the task history database.
  • Fase 2: download files. All files recorded in Fase 1 are checked to see if they have changed. If they did not change during the last 30 seconds, the file is downloaded.

Free Upgrade

This new 2.0 version is a free upgrade for all current (1.x) customers. Your license key will continue to work for version 2.0, just install it "on top" of your current WatchFTP version.

Download

English Download Page
German Download Page
Spanish Download Page

WatchFTP 2.0 Beta

WF 2.0 Beta 1

A new beta for WatchFTP is available, see our forum for download links.

This beta has 2 major improvements:

• A new "Task History" window that shows you all downloaded files and messages
• An improved "download method". Version 2 will automatically download files in 2 fases:
  • Fase 1: detect files. WatchFTP scans the FTP server for new and changed files. All detected files are recorded in the task history database.
  • Fase 2: download files. All files recorded in Fase 1 are checked to see if they have changed. If they did not change during the last 30 seconds, the file is downloaded.

Free Upgrade

When released, this new 2.0 version will be a free upgrade for all current (1.x) customers. Your license key will continue to work for version 2.0, just install it "on top" of your current WatchFTP version.