SysInternals posts

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Freeware, Troubleshooting

NirLauncher puts hundreds of Nirsoft and SysInternals apps in one tidy package

by Lee Mathews Oct 7th 2009

NirSoft has developed a truckload of useful little applications over the years, many of which you're probably carting around on a USB flash drive if you do any admin work.

Now, thanks to the availability of the NirLauncher beta, Nir's applications are easier to download and use than ever. Included with the NirLauncher executable are more than 100 applications including password viewers for various apps, command line utilities, web video tools, and loads more.

As Nir points out on his blog post, at least one of the apps in the suite is probably going to trigger a false positive from your antivirus app of choice.

Tags: nir-sofer, nirsoft, sysinternals, utilities

Filed under: Blogging, Microsoft, Freeware, Lists

6 Microsoft freebies I actually love to use

by Lee Mathews Jul 1st 2009

No, Windows won't ever compete with Linux on price. However, even though Microsoft isn't giving away their RTM operating systems for free, they do offer a lot of great software and services at no charge. Here are my six favorites -- feel free to share yours with us in the comments!

1. Windows Live Writer - If you don't blog, Live Writer probably isn't that useful to you. If you do, though, it's hard to find a Windows application that can compete with WLW. It's got loads of great features including plugin support so I can add things like Twitter integration.

2. SysInternals - There are so many useful apps under the SysInternals umbrella - Autoruns, Process Explorer, Desktops, RegMon - the list goes on and on. There's also live.sysinternals.com to provide easy access to them all when I forget my usb flash drive. Awesome.

Tags: free, list, live-sync, microsoft, security-essentials, skydrive, sysinternals, tools, utilities, windows

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Troubleshooting

Portable WSCC simplifies access to SysInternals, Nirsoft utilities

by Lee Mathews Oct 31st 2008

SysInternals and Nirsoft make a lot of really, really useful applications, but they're all standalone. Keeping them organized for easy access can get to be a bit of a pain, and that's when Windows System Control Center comes to the rescue.

WSCC is a free, portable application designed to centralize and simplify access to these utilities. Think of it as the Swiss Army shell for your "knife blades."

Launch the program and enter the location for your apps. Relative paths are supported, so don't forget to adjust the directories accordingly if you plan on running it from your flash drive. On my drive, I created a WSCC folder in the root placed the other applications in two subfolders (NS and SI). I find it helpful to check the "hide missing items" box since I don't use every app WSCC supports.

The group buttons on the left side of the main program window make finding specific utilties fast and easy. At the top of the window, there's a search box - which is also a great help in quickly locating an app.

Keep in mind, the download is only the WSCC - you'll need to fetch the actual programs from Nirsoft and SysInternals yourself. Save some time, and grab the SI apps in a single file and Nir's from the Web Panel.

It's free for both private and commercial us, and should be a welcome addition to any Window's admin's flash drive.

[ via Freeware Files ]

Tags: admin, nirsoft, portable, sysinternals, technician, utilities

Filed under: Utilities, Microsoft, Freeware

Sysinternals Tools Now Available as a Single Download

by Lee Mathews Sep 4th 2008

The MS Sysinternals crew has created a number of really useful tools, like the previously mentioned Desktops, TCPView, and Process Explorer. In May, Microsoft put all the downloads together in one place, at live.sysinternals.com.

Fresh off the three-day weekend, they decided to simplify the download process even further by creating a single 8mb file containing their popular troubleshooting utilities.

No, the file doesn't contain the oh-so-fun BSOD screensaver (coming soon to your friend's trojan-infested Windows PC), but it does pack an incredible number of useful tools. Here's a sampling of what's in the file:

AdExplorer: allows viewing, editing, and backup of Active Directory databases
BGInfo: embeds info system like IP, CPU, ram, disk space on the desktop
Contig: single-file defragmenter
PageDefrag: defragments pagining, event log, hibernation, and registry files
RegMon: monitors the Windows registry for changes
RootkitRevealer: helps locate kernel and user-mode rootkits
Sync: Unix-style tool to flush system data to disk

Tons of other apps are included, and it's well worth any admin's time to take a few moments to download.

Tags: sysinternals, sysinternals utilities, SysinternalsUtilities

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Sysinternals Live: Grab all the latest Sysinternals utilities in one place

by Brad Linder May 29th 2008

A few years ago Microsoft bought a company called Sysinternals that makes some of the most useful free utilities for Windows. This week the company launched Sysinternals Live, a single webpage with a huge list of Sysinternals utilities. The site isn't much to look at, but it's a one-stop shop for the latest version of any Sysinternals utilty. If you want to make sure you're always using the most recent version of a Sysinternals app, you can just grab it from the Live page without digging through a bunch of product pages to find it.

Here are a few of our favorite Sysinternals apps:

Process Explorer - This is a replacement for the Windows Task Explorer that gives you detailed information about your CPU and RAM usage as well as running processes.

Autoruns - This utility lets you easily manage the programs and processes that launch every time Windows starts.

Contig - This is a powerful command-line disk defragmenter.

You can access these programs by typing \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\contig.exe or autoruns.exe or procexp.exe into your Windows Explorer. You can run programs this way even if you haven't previously downloaded and installed them. Or if you just want easy access to the installers, you can also use http://live.sysinternals.com/contig.exe.

If you know the name of the utility you want, you can create a browser bookmark that will always link to the latest version.

[via ZDNet]

Tags: autoruns, contig, process-explorer, sysinternals, sysinternals-live

Filed under: Developer, Security, Utilities, News, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

Original (pre-Microsoft) SysInternals utilities

by Jason Clarke Jun 11th 2007

If you were a big fan of SysInternals before Microsoft went and bought them, you might be interested in this extremely unofficial list of their utilities from their pre-Microsoft days. Now for the warnings: we have not downloaded or tried any of these utilities, and do not recommend that you do so. Of course downloading files from an unofficial source is unwise for all sorts of security-related reasons, particularly utilities that function at the low level that SysInternals utilities do. Further, being that Microsoft now owns SysInternals, downloading these files is almost certainly not allowed.

In fact, we suggest that if you're interested in the SysInternals utilities, check out Microsoft's SysInternals site and grab them from there. It's highly likely that once Microsoft catches wind of this unofficial listing of files, they'll get it shut down in short order.

Tags: Microsoft SysInternals, MicrosoftSysinternals, SysInternals, sysinternals utilities, SysinternalsUtilities, unofficial sysinternals, UnofficialSysinternals, Windows SysInternals, WindowsSysinternals

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Security, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

TCPView - Sysinternals utility from Microsoft

by Jason Clarke Jan 21st 2007

It's old news that Sysinternals was bought by Microsoft, swallowing up all of the wonderful utilities they developed. That being said, there is still some useful stuff that was done by SysInternals that we haven't previously covered, so I thought I'd bring one that was useful to me this week to your attention.

I had a problem with a piece of client / server software that was occurring due to too many TCP connections to the server application, but I couldn't determine where those connections were coming from. TCPView monitors all incoming TCP connections and tells you what process they are connecting to, where they are coming from, and what ports are being used. It took me all of about 10 seconds to deduce my problem.

So if you're having TCP/IP troubles, TCPView is a utility that should definitely be in your toolbox.

Tags: incoming connections, IncomingConnections, Microsoft, Sysinternals, TCP Connections, TCP View, TCP/IP, TcpConnections, TcpView

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

Sysinternals now Windows Sysinternals

by Jordan Running Nov 8th 2006

We all knew this day was coming. Back in July we reported that Microsoft had acquired Winternals Software, its free Windows utility site Sysinternals, and its founder Mark Russinovich. After a longer wait than I'd have expected, Microsoft has relaunched the site in its own image as Windows Sysinternals. I'm not sure if the entire Sysinternals library has made the transition to the new site, but it is still chock full of free utilities for Windows developers, power users, and IT folks. In addition, Windows Sysinternals has its own blog now, and Russinovich has also continued to blog under Microsoft's wing at his new TechNet blog.

Tags: blog, freeware, Mark Russinovich, MarkRussinovich, microsoft, sysinternals, utilities, windows, winternals

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware

Process Explorer beats the pants off the Task Manager

by Ryan Carter Sep 7th 2006

Did you know the Windows Task Manager doesn't show you the whole picture of system processes running on your machine? Of course you did, but finding an app that will give you this info on a silver platter and leave a mint on your pillow is a different story. That is presumably why you're smart enough to read Download Squad. Its because we bring you the good stuff to so this kind of thing, process exploring, baby. If you want detailed process info and the ability to kill processes to boot, go download Process Explorer from SysInternals (now Microsoft owned). Process Explorer goes quite good with Killbox, and works great for witch-hunting a notorious virus or spyware in the thickness of the dark jungle. Creepy.

Tags: analysis, Microsoft, ProcessExplorer, SysInternals, TaskManager, Windows

Filed under: Microsoft

Microsoft acquires Winternals, Sysinternals

by Jordan Running Jul 18th 2006

Today Microsoft announced that it has acquired Winternals Software, maker of data recovery and protections software, as well as free Windows utility site Sysinternals. The acquisition will include Mark Russinovich, Winternals and Sysinternals founder, who will come to Microsoft as a Technical Fellow, Microsoft's title for "someone whose technical vision, expertise, and world-class leadership is widely recognized." The Winternals web site has a short FAQ about the acquisition, which says Microsoft will be integrating Winternals' technologies into its products, and Russinovich has made a post to his Sysinternals blog which says Sysinternals "will remain for the time being while Microsoft determines the best way to integrate it into its own community efforts, and the tools will continue to be free to download."

Tags: acquisition, buyout, freeware, Mark Russinovich, MarkRussinovich, microsoft, sysinternals, utilities, winternals

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