UserAssistant

It's a well-known fact that the Windows registry keep track of everything that's happening on the computer, from user and app permissions to information about launched programs and other accessed files.

If you're interested in an accurate method of viewing frequently used apps on your PC, especially if you share the workstation with other people and want to know what they've been doing, you can resort to UserAssist.

It's a tiny and portable app that can analyze the exact registry file containing all info about favorite apps, called "ntuser.dat". Unfortunately, it cannot autodetect this file, which means that you have to find and open it yourself.

Although this might seem like a pesky task, you can use a capable file searcher to quickly locate ntuser.dat, like Everything. On the bright side, this means that you can even copy ntuser.dat from other machines to analyze their info.

Once analysis is complete, UserAssist compiles and shows various information about each program found in the registry hive of frequently used tools, including the app name, source code, number of times it was launched, and data of last access. If you're not comfortable with reading data in this window or just wish to do this later, you can save all info to a CSV-formatted file.

The program successfully retrieved the ntuser.dat information on Windows 10 in our tests. It carried out the scanning operation quickly while remaining light on system resources usage. Because it's wrapped in a portable package, you can keep it in your collection of portable utilities or save it to a USB flash drive to easily move it between all your PCs.

Taking everything into account, UserAssist comes to the aid of any user who wishes to retrieve useful details about frequently accessed applications, such as names and count.