I try to find out what exactly an .exe is changing on my windows computer before i really execute it, e.g. see the registry changes which will take action, which files are going to get changed, which new files are going to be added etc.
Is this possible?
Best Answer
How do I know what will change on my Windows computer before I run a program?
That's not possible:
If you analysed the .exe program and knew what system calls it can make you would have to give it all possible inputs to predict what would happen when it was run.
There is an infinite number of possible inputs (consider just the simple case of typing random characters into a text file, there are millions of possible combinations).
In the particular case of "which new files are going to be added" nothing can know in advance the filename you are going to give the program to save a file.
The best you can do is run the program (maybe in a sandbox) and monitor the changes as they happen.
There are a number of possibilities for this monitoring. The most useful is probably Process Monitor as it provides lots of information that can be logged.
From Nirsoft:
From SystemInternals:
Disclaimer
I am not affiliated with Nirsoft or SystemInternals in any way, I am just an end user of their software.