[out-of-ideas]

there are api monitoring tools; my goto is this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/pro...

MS had a tool that let you set an applications "observed" system variables, like OS ect; this was back in win2000 and before now modernization of the windows compatibility stuff, new stuff sort of superseded it. i currently recollect the exe name even after inspecting a win2000 iso - edit2: apparently apcompat.exe ( lol this archive page triggered some memories: https://ia802200.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/33... )

edit: there were even api firewalls, zonealarm had one, and a number of others. i think people lost interest in locking their systems down as they seem very unpopular nowadays

[oblio]

It might have been Sandboxie. I don't remember where I got the dog reference (not god, typo in the original post), but it seems to have been a classic Windows MFC app, and it does date back to 2004, so it would fit the timeframe. I don't remember using it much, I guess configuration was cumbersome, as it generally is for these kinds of per-app/per-permission manual configuration tools.

[out-of-ideas]

did you use the one 15+ years ago? what else can you tell about it?

sandboxie is quite old yes; and `dog` vs `god` LOL; did you drop your question in to an LLM? copilot gave me (re dog) winpatrol - though i dont think it has task any application based api stuff https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/winpatrol/

there was also things like vmwares thinstall which would wrap up an exe's installation process to make a more or less portable application (edit was here)

there were apps like InstallSheild's system monitoring software which could really monitor a systems changes before and after and build installations of files/registries changed

then there stuff like Deep Freeze which made windows more or less immutable (to a degree) where a reboot would "restore" the system - useful in schools ect

[oblio]

I used Gemini to find stuff out. But WinPatrol was actually what I vaguely remember, I think...I probably remember it doing more than it actually did, my recollection was that you would install it, run it, and it could intercept, I think, applications you wanted to run. Or you'd run it through WinPatrol?

That's why I said Sandboxie is closer to in spirit to what I remembered.

It's been closer to 20 years since I used it, I remember a lot of popups, I think, and you could break programs in all sorts of creative ways :-)))