Its been a while since I asked this. Thought it would be fun to start a new thread with suggestions people have for software tools they use and the tool application pros and cons and description of how its implemented etc for free and low cost software tools that help System Admins, IT Professionals, and Users who support a few systems or just their own computers.
*None of what is shared below is solicitation, nor should this be used by software companies that have a product to sell to use to promote their product. This thread is just to make all who want to know, aware of software tools who have no monetary gain from sharing information on what software to check out and try out.
Here is a list of software that I have used to help me in supporting systems and users:
Remote Admin:TeamViewer - I have used this for non commercial use in which its freely available to be used for non commercial use. Pros = you can easily connect to a remote computer that is healthy enough to connect to the internet and have Teamviewer installed to it to host the remote connection. Cons= Someone has to be at the other end to accept the connection by giving you 2 pieces of information, a number that represents that specific system and another number that is the passcode to gain access. I have used this for friends who had issues gaming and I am able to chat with them over the phone and take mouse and keyboard controls and they can see me in control as I share with them whatever it is that is important that would take so much more effort trying to describe something for someone to follow, that its just easier to take control yourself and show them hands on how to do something. ** Should only be used with people that you absolutely trust as for if your hosting it your giving the other person physical access to your system to so just about anything that someone sitting at your computer could do.
RealVNC - I only use this now for local network remote admin use. I ran into problems with systems with the service hosted getting hacked about 8 years ago and a port forward active for remote access to my home systems. I was running a version of realVNC which had a security flaw allowing for a BlackVNC attack. As long as used local network and no systems on the DMZ and no systems with port forwards then its probably ok.
RDP - I rarely use RDP anymore as for it locks the computer at the other end when the session is established. Most of the remote admin stuff I need to do is with someone else on the phone or yelling to another room on how to do something in which I can remote into systems in my home to help wife or daughter with an issue without having to walk downstairs by use of RealVNC instead. And for those requiring help outside the home TeamViewer is the tool i use.
Malware/Antivirus/Prevention:MalwareBytes - I use the free edition and happy with it. It cleans systems well. I have yet to find anything that gets around it. Cons - Free version is Not a Real-Time scanner though so you can potentially infect your system and then hopefully it doesnt prevent MalwareBytes from removing the problem.
AVG Free Antivirus - I use this as the antivirus on my systems. I am low risk for infection because I dont just download and open unknown attachments in e-mail. Havent had any problems with AVG Free Antivirus.
WinPatrol - This was a suitable replacement for systems that are at higher risk for infections that a user could click on something bad and infect the system. This warns you that something is about to make a system change that can be a very bad problem if not wanted. Prior to this I use to use Spybot with Tea-Timer.
Hardware Software Tools:CrystalDiskInfo - I use the free portable non installer edition to check on Hard Drive and SSD health and statistics from S.M.A.R.T data. It works well on most drives. *Some external drives its unable to detect, but every internally installed hard drive I have used with this software its detected and given me information to assess the health of the drive. ** One feature I like for this software is that for example I had a 164.7GB early SATA hard drive that had 3 bad sectors. I was able to raise the threshold for reporting a problem to 4 sectors, so it showed Green Good for 3 sectors or less. I then could run the software on a weekly basis and see if the drive is degrading or holding steady at the health of healthy but less than 4 sectors bad.
PassMark Benchmark - I use the 30 day trial on clean builds when I want to see how healthy they are running. I can stress all components and see if there is a bottleneck or performance issue. Once the 30 days are up most the features are disabled. At that point I uninstall it as for the system has been optimized and burned it with benchmarks to know that its a solid rig.
SpeedFan - I use this primarily as my temperature monitoring software of choice. I like that it has a graph option to where you can select specific parts of the system to monitor such as CPU, GPU, Hard Drive, and Bridge Temp. I use this when I overclock systems to make sure that the operating temperature for the system doesnt climb into component frying levels. With the graphing feature I can run a benchmark and stress the system such as with PassMark benchmark and then when its done look at the graph and see how slow or fast the temperature climbed and where it capped at and then how fast it dropped when benchmark ended.
SuperPI - Stress Testing for single-core CPU's. I use this for CPU burn in's for systems that I overclock after the 30 days ran out on Passmark Benchmark.
Y-Cruncher - Multiple Thread/Core Stress Testing PI for CPUs with HT or multiple cores. I use this for CPU burn in's for systems that I overclock after the 30 days ran out on Passmark Benchmark.
Alert Ping Pro - I used this tool to monitor networks for the last system admin job I had. It supported adding rules of what to do if there is a problem and launching other programs under trouble conditions. This allowed for me to have a failsafe ready to switch over if critical systems went down to do an auto switch over by use of calling to EXE's of programs I wrote which were either a macro that was compiled to EXE or other instructions to command other hardware devices through batch etc to make changes. Also used it as a main part of a system I made to call me on my cell phone and tell me where the problem was so that as a problem popped up I was able to act on it within minutes most of the time before the user was even aware a problem had happened. ** This soft money but was well worth it for detecting when network devices and whole sections of a network went down due to a power outage for multiple sites in which redirection would be needed for data farm etc.
Auslogics Disk Defrag - I like using this in addition to the built in Windows defrag. I like its block display that shows like the old school defrag as to block relocations. Its very fast in cleaning up fragmentation and its free. * I was suggested this software by a friend who was in college recently that the professor stated its better than the built in Windows defrag tool. Not sure if this is true or not, but I run it anyways and its pretty fast.
Admin Programming:Bloodshed Dev C++ - I was using this a while back for systems I wanted to program in C++ for that I didnt want to have to worry about .Net Framework requirement support for my programs. Pros = Doesnt Require .Net . Cons = It has some bugs. I ran into one of them in which I just needed to rewrite some code to avoid use of that method and use an alternate means.
Perl - ( ActivePerl Community Edition ) - Pros = I've used this for writing down and dirty quick Perl scripts to do work that is beyond that of what a batch would achieve as well as what can be written in 4 lines of code in Perl could take 20 or more lines of code in C++. Cons = Requires installation on each computer that you plan to run your .PL Perl script on.
JitBit Macro Recorder - This tool allows for you to either record a process and repeat that process as many times as you like or program up a macro on the fly with use of its extensive IDE. Pros= You can have a macro ready in minutes. The macro can be compiled as an EXE and run on other systems without the software installed on it to support so stand alone macros can be created from it. I have used the macros for all sorts of automation. Outside of admin, I use used this for redundant mind numbing gaming requirements to farm stuff on predetermined instructions so that I didnt have to play the game(s) myself, but instead it ran like a bot would. Cons= This is not freeware. If you plan to have a system run remotely you need to be very careful with timing, if it gets to the next step before say a file is ready to be accessed through windows explorer it will carry out the mouse/keyboard instructions no matter if the file to be targeted is available yet over a network share, so delays should be added or delays in your recording of your macro should be added to allow for software windows to load and refresh etc. Otherwise your macro can run out of step with what is happening for real and so you can all of a sudden have other GUI objects interacted with in which they were never intended to be interacted with, and have this running looped you can have a big mess on your hands as for the software does not know any better and its just running through time delays and X,Y mouse coordinates and left or right mouse click and keystrokes with ms timed delays for down key and up key etc. Once you get use to how sensitive it is you can avoid many of the troubles.
Offline Documentation:HTTrack - Used to copy website content for offline viewing, where a site doesnt have information available as a PDF and information is scattered among many pages making printing them to a PDF not worth the time. Pros= Works great for sites that have statistical data such as price lists or text information that is non dynamic. You can set the depth of how many levels down into the sebsite to copy data from to only get the data that is nearest top of the website vs data that is deeper down in the navigation tree. Cons= Websites with Flash and other multimedia it does not copy and so you can end up with a broken offline copy of a website. Additionally depending on the site to be copied, you might be copying gigs of mostly unneeded information. This crawler also downloads infected files or nasty scripts from web servers as the antivirus detects them after they are copied to the system.
DoPDF 7 - I use version 7 even though a newer version is available. This allows me to print websites contents as a PDF to use documentation offline in PDF form when needed. * When installing the newer DoPDF 8 it wanted to install additional junk. I have a copy of DoPDF 7 on my software folder in my software archive that I use to install from without redownloading or without having to install a newer version which might have additional junk install along side it if you dont read all prompts and deselect the bundleware from installation.
System Recovery:Macrium Reflect: I use this to clone hard drives for systems. I then leave the extra hard drive in the system disconnected so that a rebuild is just a matter of connecting the drive and cloning the good copy over the bad or corrupt copy if needed. For laptops where only 1 drive can be installed at a time I use an external SATA HDD dock through USB.
I think thats all that comes to mind for now. Might add some more later if I remember any that i forgot to add here...
