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Ten Ultra-Useful (Free) Windows System UtilitiesJun 02 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The freeware (non-Spyware) applications listed here can make your computer usage less stressful and more productive. I hope they help make your life a little less hectic.
I'll get to the point right away: It's hard to find quality software out there. It's even harder to find software that can genuinely make your life easier and do it without monetary cost. I've written this document to highlight some free utilities that have served me well and made my life easier. They can make your life easier too. These are not in any particular order. Additionally, these are non-Spyware programs. 1. MCL by Mike Lin URL: http://www.mlin.net/MCL.shtml If you are a Linux or Unix guru (or even if you hail from the days of MS-DOS,) you know how frustrating it can be to have to deal with the idiot-proof Windows interface. It can be torture to navigate through different levels of the start menu. It might be faster to find that icon on the desktop, but you've got several web browser windows open and then you'll have to find it among the dozens of shortcuts cluttering your life. But then again, you could go to the DOS prompt and execute it manually... MCL can simplify your life by creating a command line in Windows. On my system, I have configured it to appear when I press ctrl+alt+[backslash]. When I activate it, a little window appears where I can enter my pre-defined commands. For example, I have created macros to instantly run my most used programs and one that automatically brings Epinions up in my web browser. If I begin my statement with a percent (%) sign, then the command will be as if it was run from the DOS prompt. This is extremely convenient, and I recommend it to anyone who is a fast typist and is tired of doing things the way Microsoft wants them to be done. 2. X-Setup from Xteq Systems URL: http://www.xteq.com/products/xset/index.html The words from the web site admirably describe this program: "X-Setup offers several advantages, making it the 'ultimate tool for black belt system tuning'." And they couldn't be more correct. X-Setup allows you to tweak the Windows registry (Win95, 98, 2000, NT4, ME, Whistler) and make all kinds of changes to hidden settings. For example, you can make Windows think you've given Microsoft your secrets by registering it (Windows) when you haven't actually done it. This allows you to use the Windows Update feature. You can disable dangerous ActiveX scripting used by so many trojans, worms and viruses. You can change the name and serial number your OS is registered to, and even the default name/company to which program try to register themselves. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can mess with the Windows CPU Boost, compression settings, network auto-login and security settings. And you can even create .reg files to run on other machines that will automagically make the specified changes. Suffice it to say, if I listed everything that this program could do, you'd be reading this document for a very long time. 3. Eraser by Sami Tolvanen URL: http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ This is a security utility. It allows you to securely remove information from your machine so that it cannot be easily recovered. Normally, when you delete a file or your browser cache, the files can be recovered in a few seconds by a person with the right software. Eraser makes it impossible for software to recover files and difficult for even experts to determine what was there by dissecting your hardware. You can have it do a sweep of your hard drive to remove any data that was insecurely deleted, or you can make it kill specified files (evidence?) on the spot. There's even a scheduling option for routine cleaning. This is truly a very secure disk-cleaning method in terms of making sure certain files are gone. (Please remember that the Windows OS profiles you as you use it, and Eraser will not delete any information is your OS that is deliberately kept in files.) 4. AnalogX BanishCD URL: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/banishcd.htm A lot of people copy the Windows installation files from the CD to their hard drive so that whenever Windows asks for a file, they won't have to go fumbling around for the CD. This is a great convenience, but it's very annoying that Windows still looks for the CD in the CD-ROM drive (where it was probably installed from in the first place.) This program allows you to redirect the search so that it will look in the directory where you copied the files. And you can even undo the changes with one click. This is what I call a common-sense utility. 5. Dimension 4 from Thinking Man Software URL: http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/index.html You can use this program to synchronise your system clock with one of the dozens of atomic clocks around the world. An internet connection is used to do the synchronisation. I have never seen a free time synchronisation with as many options as this one. If you want your machine to a really accurate clock setting, then this is what you should be getting. 6. Irfan View by Irfan Skiljan URL: http://www.irfanview.com/ I searched long and hard for a good graphic-viewer program. This is it. I have not come across a graphics format this program can't view. The best things about it are that it's free, it's very fast, and it supports a lot of file formats. I cannot think of a better graphic viewer program out there, paid or free. This is what software should be like. It is a product of non-hurried development. In fact, a lot of the best software out there was developed by people who coded it in their free time and didn't have to worry about corporate development schedules and managers on their case all the time. 7. ISOBuster by Peter Van Hove URL: http://www.ping.be/vcd/isobuster.htm Scenario: You've burned a multisession CD but something went wrong. You can't access an earlier session and your data seems lost. Fear not, for ISOBuster is here! It will bypass the CDs file system and access the contents directly. This also applies to CDs with buffer underrums and other nastiness. It can even extract files from CD images that haven't even been burned. If you have to deal with any of these kinds of problems, this tool is a godsend. 8. 007 Password Recovery from iOpus Software URL: http://www.iopus.com/password_recovery.htm Just recently, this utility saved me from a potentially very embarrassing situation. I was over at a client's home trying to figure out why their internet connection wouldn't work. As far as I could tell, everything was configured perfectly but the ISP kept asking for the password on dialup. It rejected whatever was entered. Since I was transferring the internet access from one machine to another, I examined the old one which dialled in perfectly had the settings still entered in it. I used this utility to decode the "********" coded password from the dial-up networking window. Lo and behold, we were mistaking an l for a 1 in the written records. It was quick fix. Essentially, this program will decode the line of asterisks and tell you what's really there. There are a few limitations described on the web site, but all in all, this is (in my humble opinion and if you'll pardon the cliché,) a must-have utility. 9. ReadPlease 2000 from MoneyTree Software Company URL: http://www.readplease.com/rpindex.htm Being the lazy creatures we are, it's often easier to not do a thorough proof-reading of any kind of writing we create. This can lead to some really embarrassing errors. The ReadPlease program will read your documents through a speech synthesiser with your choice of voices and reading speed. I use this for all kinds of course work and should really use it for the documents I write for Epinions. It allows you to identify grammar or spelling errors by listening instead of reading. This is a huge convenience and I recommend it to anyone who submits writing to be read by others. 10. F-Protect from Frisk Software Int'l URL: http://www.complex.is/f-prot/ Let's say that you're helping your friend who was struck by a computer virus. You booted their machine into DOS using your write-protected start-up disk (which, as a responsible computer user, you religiously keep for occasions like this.) You want to run McAfee virus scan but it's a Windows program and you're in DOS! This is where F-Prot comes in. It's a robust DOS virus scanner that, when compressed, will fit onto a single 1.44 MB floppy disk. This program has been around for longer than I remember and I trust it enough to use it on my system. It would be wise to download a copy and keep it updated for occasions like the one I described. Note that the Windows version of this program is not free. In Conclusion... If I have made your life easier by alerting you to the existence of certain useful software, then my mission with this document was a success. If you run across free utilities of similar usefulness, I'd be happy to hear from you. I'm now considering writing a column on ultra-useful free Internet utilities. You might see it appearing on Epinions soon.  |
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by texas-swede
