A better Event Viewer? Or Monitor?

I'm looking for a program that monitors activity on a PC. Not a secret spy-on-people type of program, just one that records events in a log. Specifically I want to use it for troubleshooting by being able to go back after problems and see what was going on when they started. I don't want to see every keystroke or screenshots, I just want major events. For example, I'd like to be able to see when software is installed or uninstalled, when programs are opened or closed, and I'd like to know if antivirus was disabled and by what user. Any suggestions? Or maybe there is a way I'm not aware of to get that information from existing Windows logs?

 

ooops, I see you already use event viewer so my reply is worthless.

 

I use Event Viewer, and the info it provides is along the lines of what I'm looking for, but unfortunately some things are missing. I don't really understand how it decides what to log and what not to, but I know that it doesn't include a lot of items. For example it doesn't show some software installs/uninstalls. It also doesn't show some program access. For example it shows my nightly backups, but it doesn't show Internet Explorer opening or closing. An Event Viewer that could be customized to show additional information would be perfect.

 

Anyone?

 

Look over the offerings here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cb56073f-62a3-4ed8-9dd6-40c84cb9e2f5.aspx
you might find the program that gives you the information you want to see.