On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Matt Plahtinsky<[email protected]> wrote:
Here is a list of some of my most used tools.
Many of those are on my list, too. :-)
GParted Live - Resize partitions
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
I use SystemRescueCD (http://www.sysresccd.org/) which includes
parted, gparted, and a bunch more.
HDClone Pro - Hard Drive cloning tool
http://www.hdclone.com/
PartImage and ntfsclone, two partition imaging/cloning tools, are
also included on SysRescueCD.
JKDefrag-3.36/MyDefrag-4.0 - Hard Drive Defrag program
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
New website:<http://www.mydefrag.com/>
Sysinternals - An sysadmin's best friend
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
Indeed. In particular, Process Explorer. Stop guessing why someone
is complaining "my computer is slow" and actually *know*.
Lua BugLight - For finding out where a program hangs with it run under
restricted mode.
http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2006/08/07/LuaBuglight.aspx
Newer release:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2008/11/06/lua-buglight-2-0-second-preview.aspx>
Belarc Advisor - Audits installed software, list keys, hardware, Microsoft
patches, ect and generates a report. *** this tool is for home use only
according to their website ****
Using Belarc Advisor for business purposes is a violation of their
license agreement. I presume you like to be paid for the work you do,
and get mad when clients stiff you on payment. Perhaps you should
extend the same thoughts to your suppliers.
DBAN - Securely wipes hard drives to DOD standards
http://www.dban.org/
FYI, current DoD standards do not permit software-based destruction
methods. But DBAN is still a useful tool for wiping "business data".
If you have some tools that you use a lot please share.
All "free" tools:
UnxUtils
Common Unix commands and utilities, ported to Win32
<http://unxutils.sf.net/>
Notepad++
Lightweight but full-featured Windows-style text editor
<http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/>
7-Zip
All purpose archiver/compression tool
Handles most archive formats (PKZip, RAR, MSFT CAB, many SFX EXEs,
tar, gzip, etc.)
<http://www.7-zip.org/>
WinDirStat
Very good disk space usage visualization tool
<http://windirstat.info/>
FileZilla Client
GUI FTP/SFTP/SCP client
<http://filezilla-project.org/>
CDBurnerXP
Lightweight and user-friendly CD/DVD authoring/burning
Now available as an MSI
Get rid of that Roxio/Nero bloatware
<http://cdburnerxp.se/>
ORCA
MSI/MST editor
Not much good for on-the-spot fix-it jobs, but great for deployment engineering
Unfortunately, you have to download the whole damn Windows SDK to get it
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370557(VS.85).aspx>
WinDbg
Windows debugger
Can sometimes tell you what driver causes a STOP bluescreen
<http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx>
Not really sysadmin things, but worth mentioning:
GIMP
Bitmap/raster graphics editor
Useful for manipulating screen captures
Also for dealing with photos users want something done with
Also pranks
Not as slick as Adobe Photoshop, but a lot cheaper
<http://www.gimp.org/>
Inkscape
Vector graphics editor
Useful for network/equipment diagrams and such
Not as slick as Visio, but a lot cheaper
<http://www.inkscape.org/>
Firefox
Combined with various extensions, best web browser out there
<http://www.mozilla.com/>
-- Ben
